Operation: TIDAL FURY
by BIG Z1776
Summary: A planet in the Outer Colonies has fallen to the Insurrectionists, and the UNSC wants it back, and they're gonna get it back. But the URF is waiting for them to try. Follow the brave Marines, ODST's, and Army Troopers as they fight to retake this planet from the grasp of the Insurrection.
1. Chapter 1

**Operation: TIDAL FURY**

Chapter 1

Location: Planet Dyonisis, Delta Xi System

Date: January 21, 2524

Time: 0230 Zulu

 _MISSION BRIEF: OPERATION TIDAL FURY_

 _CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET_

 _On December 25, 2523, at 0600 Zulu Time, Insurrection forces launched coordinated large-scale assaults on primary population centers, UEF government centers, and UNSC and CG positions on the planet Dyonisis. Local Colonial Guard formations surrendered, fled, or pledged their loyalties to the enemy. UNSC and ONI forces were left surrounded and outnumbered, and at 0945 Zulu began evacuating the surface of the planet, leaving the majority of the planet within URF control. Light casualties have been reported amongst military personnel and civilian news outlets on the surface report a total breakdown of civil services and absolute anarchy in the initial days of the Insurrection takeover. Casualties amongst civilian populations have not been confirmed by ONI._

 _On January 12, 2524 UNSCDF massed a Task Force at Reach for immediate offensive operations made up of the UNSC_ Aquila _Carrier Battle Group, 25_ _th_ _Marine Expeditionary Force, and the 312_ _th_ _ODST Battalion. The objectives of the Task Force are the successful seizures of the planet Dyonisis' population centers and strategic locations, capture or kill any URF leadership, and the destruction of all URF weapons, equipment, and facilities._

 _ONI has determined that there are potentially over fifty thousand hostile gunmen. These fighters have access to modern and civilian grade weapons and stockpiles of ammunition left over or handed to them by turncoat Colonial Guard armories. Colonial Guard airfields had in their inventories several hundred D77-TC "Pelican" Dropships, UH-144 "Falcon" Helicopters, AV-14 "Hornet" Gunships, and a large force of automated F-99 "Wombat" Drone Fighters. The enemy also has in its possession numerous Warthog LRV's and its variants, M808 "Scorpion" Main Battle Tanks, and artillery pieces and missile systems and hundreds of technicals mounting heavy machine guns and autocannons._

 _Expect fierce resistance. URF propaganda videos posted to social media have shown that they have heavily fortified the major cities and local militias have set up defensive outposts in each town and village. These fortifications are a mix of military steel or concrete barricades and Hesco Bastions, modular buildings and towers along with sandbags, trenches, minefields, and anti-tank barriers (Spikes and Ditches). There are also images of improvised airfields hidden in the vast forests and weapons and equipment stores located in civilian occupied areas._

 _The plan of operations is as follows:_

 _Establish orbital supremacy._

 _Engage and destroy hostile aircraft and airfields to pave the way for Marine and ODST forces to land on the planet with airstrikes on hostile strongpoints._

 _Re-take UNSC bases in the countryside to act of Main Operations Bases and establish FOB's on strategic high ground and conduct patrols into hostile territory and sweep for URF forces and destroy them or force them to withdraw._

 _Once a secure landing site is secured three UNSC Army divisions will be landed to support the 25_ _th_ _MEU in sweeping the planet._

 _Drive hostile forces towards the cities, surrounding them and destroying them in detail._

 _Once all population centers are declared secure move into the mountains, where the original URF presence was located, and destroy what hidden bases can be found._

 _Mop up remaining URF presence and gather intelligence on what other activity is planned._

The UNSC Marine Assault Ship _Okinawa_ was one of six sisters floating in a loose formation above the planet below them. Around them were four destroyers and seven frigates escorting both they and the UNSC Carrier _Aquila_ , which had a sizeable force of Longswords and Shortswords out on CAP or preparing to be vectored to their targets on the planet. Aboard the _Okinawa_ were four thousand five hundred UNSC Marines and nearly six hundred elite Orbital Drop Shock Troopers of the 312th ODST Battalion, assigned to the 25th Marine Expeditionary Unit. The Marines and ODST's got along alright, both units had been together and had worked together on several campaigns throughout the Outer Colonies, which was a rarity in the normally testy relationship between ODST's and the rest of the UNSCDF.

The units were doing all sorts of activities that they needed or wanted to do. Some of the officers were in briefings, the Marines were checking their equipment, training, or just shooting the breeze, waiting for the announcement to made that their time had come. Each unit had been briefed on the situation, and what they might be facing on the planet below them, and they were not in the least bit impressed. Respect for the Innies was something that no self-respecting serviceman or woman would be caught dead showing to their foes. The stories, much of it propaganda, had been so well ingrained into their collective consciousness that not one of them would mind killing their foes en masse.

But for the last week that wasn't necessarily what they'd been doing. The only fighting had come from the Navy, more specifically the _Aquila_ Battle Group's Longswords and Shortswords launching fighter sweeps and airstrikes on Insurrection targets on the planets. But the effectiveness of their strikes had been too little in terms of real effect at best. The magnetic signatures of the planet made pinpoint strikes difficult and fouled up the complex navigation and targeting equipment on the UNSC warbirds and Insurrection electronic counter-measures had been far more effective than the UNSC cared to admit. And this meant that the Marines and ODST's were going to have to fight it out on the ground to get anything really important done.

This didn't mean that the UNSC forces had been accomplishing nothing. The pilots of the fleet did manage to wipe the skies of the dozens of F-99 drone fighters that had been originally used for the defense of the planet from the people who used them now. But the Hornets and Pelicans had been moved from their normal airfields and only a handful had been shot down or bombed on the ground. The Innies had been moving them back and forth in between farm houses and warehouses within the cities and villages to prevent their destruction. And the search for them had seen eight Shortswords and three Longswords shot down in the past week of operations thanks to a complex air defense system defending the cities that had been handed over to the Innies largely intact.

It was this revelation that had led to the stepping up of the invasion time table the UNSC had originally planned to follow. In a few minutes the 312th ODST Battalion was going to drop into battle, their objective was simple; take and hold a UNSC airfield on an isolated island to the south of the main continent. The unit was currently prepping its equipment and going over their final assault plans. The _Okinawa_ was carefully moving its massive hull over their target by moving into low orbit, adjusting itself to be able rain down the over six hundred HEV pods that would be transporting the ODST's to the surface.

And right now, each company was in its own briefing in the large drop bays of the _Okinawa_ , holographic projections of their individual objectives laid out before them. They were all either kneeling, sitting or standing around the projection table which had a full view of the town they were about to assault. It was a relatively decent sized town built on the southern sea-side. It was on a downward slope with a grid-like setup with a few large public squares all of it centered around the docks with several dozen large and small boats.

"This, is Secmes, population of two thousand five hundred and twenty-one at last census," Major Lucas Vega, the commanding officer of Echo Company called out to his troops, "This town is our objective, as it's the main road hub in the immediate area of the Kingdom Airbase. It is quite obvious, even to the Innies, so they've positioned the better part of three hundred gunmen in this town."

"Aw…that's not enough for targets sir!" one of the men called out, getting a few laughs and cheers of agreement.

"My thoughts exactly my Corporal," Vega chuckled, "Anyway, these Innies are predominantly URF and locals, mostly fishermen, farmers, herders, and stupid idealist students. No turncoat Colonial Militias have been sighted in the area. But they've got plenty of firepower ripped from the airbase warehouses, which serves the dual purpose of being the island's main armory and military vehicle depot. But they've got our shit tagged up and will be using it against us. They're even using these fishing boats as gunboats patrolling the coastline and ferrying troops and equipment."

On the holographic projection a set of red lights lit up in the exact shape of the vehicles that they had seen thanks to the propaganda footage of the Insurrection and their own orbital photos. There were three larger ones in the shape of M808B Scorpion Main Battle Tanks, and several dozen other vehicles of different sizes and shapes. Some were Warthogs, others were pickup trucks and flatbeds, all of them uniquely modified with general purpose and heavy machine guns, or single autocannons mounted onto the flatbeds with makeshift armor plates around them.

"We've counted three Scorpions, fourteen Warthogs, and as many as thirty-seven other vehicles. But it's tough to pick out the technicals from the civilians so there might be more or there might be less," Vega shrugged as he hit the next button, causing several more spots to light up red. One was just outside of town at a T-Intersection, and others were at each of the three other entrances to town and one more in the center of town, "They've got checkpoints and strongpoints set up at each road entrance and in the center at the town hall which is their secondary headquarters on the island. They're fortified with H-Barriers, sandbags, steel and concrete barriers, and dirt mounds with machine guns and sentries with the Scorpions driving around between them. And all of this is ours to just completely fuck up."

Quite a few smiles and chuckles responded to that little declaration.

"We'll deploy with each platoon driving along each avenue of approach from the woods outside of town. Weapons platoon will be here, in the center, it's the largest and most fortified checkpoint where the only Scorpion outside of the main square is located. First will be furthest west, with second on weapon's east flank with third going along this coast road. We'll be sweeping each and every building, so heads on a swivel, watch for civilians. You find some civvies get them into the cellars or basements or anywhere safe and move on."

"Sir, we'll also have Sparrowhawks on standby when the airspace is cleared," his JTAC piped up.

"Alright roger that, platoon leaders, if you need CAS go ahead and request it directly from JTAC and he'll bring the rain. And that's it, just a normal town sweep, a bit heavier on hostile vehicles as this is their QRF so we'll be heavy on AT."

"Alright Helljumpers," the voice of Lieutenant Colonel Fellows bellowed over the intercom to the company drop pod bays, "T-minus two minutes. All units get set for a combat drop."

"Troopers! The honor of first blood is ours!" Major Vega yelled out as his men stood up and grabbed their weapons, "First platoon, you're up!"

"Hoorah!" the first platoon called out, and rushed forward with weapons in hand.

The thirty-six men and women of the first platoon charged forward, holding their mix of assault rifles, DMR's, and SAW's across their chests attached the buckles on their armor within their large silver pods before taking their seats. Seeing as this mission was supposed to be a hot insert stealth was not necessary and the ODST's had chosen their more powerful full-sized weapons, including rocket launchers for dealing with vehicles and fixed positions.

The last of the first platoon troops got into their pods and their platoon leader and platoon sergeant checked each pod two by two before shutting them tight and then they themselves sat down and then sealed their own pods and then the line of HEV pods jolted as the rack they were on move up and into the open launch bay besides four other such racks that were there or moving into position. Next came the second platoons of each company, and the third platoons with the company headquarters alongside them. Beside them were the racks of the 312th Battalion HQ detachment, with Colonel Fellows and his staff inside.

Each set of pods was programmed with a set of coordinates to aim for, all of them practically on top of their objectives. Two of the five companies, Able and Bravo, were assigned to taking the air base itself, aiming to land within the interior perimeter walls and then rapidly sweep the base of the Innies within. Charlie Company was assigned to taking a ridgeline that overwatched the base and had a radar and SAM installation installed upon it that had been responsible for the downing of two Shortswords in the past week. Dog Company was assigned to taking a small village on the other side of the ridgeline that rested along the only road leading to the airstrip, itself built on some reclaimed land connected by a landbridge to the island. Lastly Echo Company was assigned to attacking a larger town on the coast at the foot of the ridge that was the main road hub on the island and one of two operating dock facilities. The most important objective was the elimination of that SAM battery and radar installation that would allow Marine reinforcements to be landed with heavy weapons and supplies to continue the attack and then sweep the island to act as the main base of operations for the coming campaign.

As he sat in his pod Major Vega saw the faces of his platoon leaders on split screens to his left and right, and looked down to see the black face of the planet below, sprinkled with a dusting of lights thanks to the poor light discipline of the URF curfew. And directly beneath the feet of the more than six hundred ODST's was an island no bigger than a hundred and fifty square kilometers. But on that island were supposed to be over a thousand rebels, armed to the teeth and itching at the chance to face off against him and his Helljumpers. His HUD had already activated, with programmed neural interfaces that allowed him to open tabs to Blue Force tracker, access the helmet cam of every one of his men and women, ACE reports from the armor of both he and his company, and map everything out within inches of their positions.

He had each one of his troopers' pods highlighted with their ID's, showing them as one of several signatures. The writing over each trooper was organized as part of the military ID system. The first part was Echo, signifying their company. Next was one of four numbers, one, two, three, or four (four being the weapons platoon) signifying which platoon they were part of. After that was a dash and a second number set, the options being one, two, or three (six being the exception with the platoon leaders), and this signified what squad these men belonged to. And immediately next to them were alphabetical symbols, the options being 'A', 'B', or 'C' signifying the fireteam that each man was part of. There were seven other tags on his HUD, Echo's five through eleven. This was the company headquarters which was made up of Echo-5, his messenger/driver, Echo-6, the company commander, which was Major Vega himself, Echo-7, his Property NCO, Echo-8, the company Gunnery Sergeant, Echo-9, the company first sergeant, Echo-10 the company XO, and Echo-11, his JTAC (Joint Tactical Air Controller). The six men would follow him around from platoon to platoon during the assault as he commanded his troops, acting almost as a separate flying fireteam of the most experienced troopers and officers that would keep the rest of the company moving forward, giving advice to the rest of the company as they moved through the operation.

Major Vega knew that the advice that his staff would have to be giving would be at a minimum more than likely. His men and women were ODST's, the best of the best, and they were only facing Insurrectionists, a bunch of anarchists, farmers, and, at best, militia traitors who didn't have the slightest understandings of discipline or tactics. They had top of the line armor and weapons with the most advanced HUD's and Information Sharing Systems that money could buy. And they had the element of surprise along with a pinpoint strike that had hit the power generation facility for the whole island so no lights.

"Omega-6 to all units, drop in five," the voice of the battalion commander went out over the radio, ringing in the headsets of all of the ODST's, "Remember your training, stay loose, and we'll all be alive tomorrow morning. God's speed."

"All units in three, two, one," a voice said over the radio that belonged to the battalion battlefield A.I. He was an appropriately named Class C "Dumb" model by the name of Major Winters after the World War Two war hero from Easy Company of the American 101st Airborne Division's 506th Infantry, "Drop, drop, drop."

At the third 'drop' a wave of blue lights shot into existence as the rocket motors on the top of the HEV pods lit up, one by one, and each began steering minutely towards their objective in platoon-sized formations, staying well apart during the entry into the atmosphere. Each pod shook and rumbled as each man and woman held onto the immobile joysticks on their arm rests for dear life. The orange glow around their small rectangular and triangular windows lasted for a few moments as the pods entered the atmosphere. The ceramic skin on the outside of the pod was burning away, and Vega knew that this was where he was going stand the highest chance of getting killed, second only to their pods' rocket boosters failing and then "digging his own grave" with the impact.

The ODST's could see one another's pods glowing in an orange ball of flame as they entered at the same time, keeping their formations thanks to the calculations of Winters. Although Major Vega couldn't necessarily see where it was his troops were without looking up. UNSC doctrine dictated that the unit commanders hit the ground first so they could immediately coordinate their troops and prevent the kind of chaos that got men killed in combat.

Then, at three thousand feet each HEV pod's chute deployed, although the chute itself was actually the top panels of their vehicles, popping off on a titanium bar and acting a drag-type chute. This slowed their descent quite a bit, and kept the pods upright. But impact at this velocity was still instantly fatal, and the next test was coming up.

By this point the companies had separated into much tighter platoon formations, with flight paths tracking to predesignated landing zones for each and every pod. Small rocket boosters on the hulls of the HEV's triggered to life, their blue short-lived pulses sending all of them to a supposedly safe landing zone three hundred meters away from the town on the other side of a wooded creek that would provide excellent cover from the town and the enemy within it.

And then to each ODST's absolute relief their pods' boosters fired, slowing them with a powerful jolt, letting each of them know that they'd made it through one more drop. The ride was still incredibly rough, and the heat of the entry itself was still suffocating within their cramped pods. None of them dared to let go to stop the rattling of their weapons and equipment on their chests and belts until their pod hit the ground and they could get right into the battle. But the firing of the rockets didn't last long, and Major Vega felt his pod smash into ground with a powerful jolt and a split second after that he was bombarded by the cold wind chill of the sea breeze on this frigid island after his door flew off.

He leaped out of the pod, bringing his Assault Rifle to his shoulder and swept the immediate area in all directions. He flinched away as the pods of his company headquarters impacted all around him. He very nearly had to duck as one pod door zipped right over him, crashing against a frost covered pine tree. He saw and heard the bangs of the pods impacting all around him as he saw the forest up close for the first time. Thankfully it was thick, with pine trees covered in patches of snow and frost thanks to the upcoming winter on this planet. The bite of the cold night air was made even more chilly thanks to the extremely hot interior of the pod he had just exited.

"Major!" the voice of his JTAC, Lieutenant Wilson, called out on the radio as he ran over to him alongside two other ODST's of his HQ section. To his right he saw two other ODST's with Assault rifles raised come running over to him, he saw the 1st Sergeant and Gunnery Sergeant ranks on their shoulders and recognized them immediately. All of them kneeled down in the hard cold ground after leaping over a long-ago fallen tree and kneeling behind it alongside the major and the PFC and Corporal beside Lieutenant Wilson.

"We all down?" he asked as his XO ran over and kneeled next to him, offering his hand, which Vega took in a hearty hand-shake, a common ritual after a drop.

"Look like it sir, no contact from town yet. But they definitely saw us coming down on top of them," his XO reported, scrolling over his HUD and breathed a sigh of relief as all of Echo Company was present and accounted for. In the distance he could hear the popping of rifle rounds and chattering of machine guns as the ODST's waded into battle on the airfield and on the ridge to Echo Company's northwest.

"All companies company report status," the voice of Colonel Fellows called out over the radio.

"Able-6, all boots down, in contact with hostiles," the radio crackled as the first responses came in.

"Bravo-6, all boots down, one wounded, in contact."

"Charlie-6, one pod ate it, in contact."

Major Vega winced at that declaration. When a pod 'ate it' that meant that the pod had survived the entry into the atmosphere but its rockets hadn't fired, or fired enough, and the ODST within had smashed into the ground, killing them instantly. It was the most feared outcome for a drop that any ODST from the greenest to the oldest operators.

"Delta-6, all boots down, moving to Objective Ranger."

Now it was Echo Company's turn, "Echo-6, all boots down, moving to Objective Park."

"All companies roger that, proceed oscar mike," Colonel Fellows said calmly, shrugging off the fatality one of their companies had already sustained.

"All Echo's proceed to your objectives," Vega called out on the radio to his platoons.

Blue lights flashed on his HUD as he got the confirmations from his unit and moved with his company HQ up the low slope to the crest where it thinned out right above a trickling stream with ice and snow patches arrayed along the gravelly banks. He flicked his night vision on, seeing his vision go to a stark contrast in quality as the outlines of the buildings were outlined in yellow and he saw the flashes of red on his HUD as Innies went scrambling around town, rushing to prepare for battle. He also saw that every light in town had died, thanks to the EMP pulse that had bombarded the island's power generators beforehand and his company was definitely appreciating it. He could see all of the checkpoints into town from here, and saw that each was manned, and the one in the center of town had the menacing shape of a Scorpion tank turret poking above the H-barriers in the rear of the blockade.

"Echo-4, Echo-6," he called out, signaling his weapons platoon.

"Send it for Echo-4," Lieutenant Carrol Hathaway called out.

"Be advised I've got eyes on a tank at your objective, recommend that you light it up with your AT."

"Copy that Echo-6, I've got a man lining up a shot now."

He heard off to his side someone yelling out, obviously the rocketeer in question.

"Backblast clear!"

"You're clear!" someone else yelled that he could barely hear through the forest.

"Rocket!"

A loud bang and then the accompanying hiss of the rocket motor going off ripped open the quiet of the night as the single powerful HEAT round flew from the dual barrel rocket launcher and then immediately plowed into the bottom of the Scorpion's turret as it began traversing. The round penetrated the armor plating, and a cloud of smoke and dust instantly sprang away after a slight flash. Immediately after that came a powerful explosion sending shrapnel and orange flame skyward through the blown open access hatch on top of the turret. A shell from the ninety millimeter cannon slammed through the trees harmlessly as the round in the breach of the gun cooked off. Major Vega didn't have to tell them that the rocket had done its job and the tank was down as he saw the crew hopped out of the tank. This, in concert with the 'weapons free' order drew several gunshots from his company which ended up missing the operator as he'd just slunk off of the titanium hull on his belly like a snake.

But his time would come, as the ODST's of Echo Company were now all firing on the town. Red tracers were racing towards their targets in the night, answered by only a few Innies who'd already been on watch with more joining them, popping off rounds from windows and from behind cars and buildings. Most of them just blind fired, firing their rifles or machine guns by holding them up or out, exposing only their arms and hands, refusing to put themselves in danger. It was a classic sign of military incompetence seen on battlefields across the UNSC, and it was a pain in the ass.

"All platoons, push forward, can't let them get their shit together," Major Vega commanded as he ran below the crest, moving behind first platoon which was firing away with aimed single shots from their rifles and controlled three round bursts from their SAW's.

He got blue winks in response on his HUD and chanced a look over the crest from under a fallen tree resting on a boulder and his HUD highlighted a single large flatbed truck come backing out of a large shed with a single barreled M202 Autocannon mounted on it behind a box-like turret of steel. And this makeshift gun truck immediately began firing away. The heavy slugs slammed into the pine trees above the ODST's bursting as they contacted the trunks, shattering them and making it rain down with shards of wood and fractured limbs as several trees that had been hit creaked and groaned as they fell over. The loud snaps of the heavy rounds were definitely different to the ones coming from the enemy infantry and made every ODST near it tuck himself into the cold wet pine needle strewn ground.

"Echo-1 there's a fucking technical at one nine zero! " Vega roared over the radio as he pulled his rifle to his shoulder and immediately began engaging it, firing at the passenger-side door and window which was welded to a metal plate with a slit in it.

"Frag it!" he heard from a squad leader as the low thump of an under-barrel grenade launcher firing off to his right answered his order.

The forty millimeter round struck to the left of the vehicle, sending shrapnel into the rear tires and sending sparks off of the vehicle's armor plates. The vehicle's turret traversed, and fired again, this time far more accurately, sending high explosive shells into the ground near Major Vega as a second and third forty millimeter round fired from first platoon. The first round hit the vehicle right in the cab, peeling it open, killing the driver and wrecking the engine while the second round hit just below and to the right of the turret, igniting the fuel tanks and several ammo boxes.

"Nice forty mike-mikes Echo-1," Major Vega said gladly as the vehicle was now engulfed in flames as two men tried climbing over the metal turret to escape the flames. He aimed and fired at them with his rifle and was not surprised to see the first one get riddled with bullets from a good portion of first platoon and he and his staff and collapsed back into the turret as the second one went limp after being struck in the head and flopped down, bouncing off of the vehicle and landing limp on the ground with flame licking at his leg.

Another pair of explosions sounded out as he saw a Warthog drive forward into the street near third platoon and saw a pair of grenades launched at it, impacting short as the fifty on the back opened fire. But it was only a split second of fire, as such a vehicle was a bullet magnet and the window and turret were lit up by several SAW's and rifles, shredding the tires and killing the driver and gunner. With that threat gone he could now see his men start advancing at a sprint in squad or fireteam sized elements. His men had to charge across an ankle deep stream or across one of several small bridges with small concrete barriers in place as checkpoints. He'd already seen each one instantly cleared in the first few minutes of the engagement, their defenders either cowering down in fear, mowed down bolting for the town, or just shot outright.

"Echo-6, this is Echo-2," his radio crackled over the sound of gunfire as he carefully picked his way along the firing line as more and more ODST's were moving forward as the first leading elements reached the town.

"Send it for Echo-6," he responded.

"Interrogative are we cleared forty mike-mike and grenades in town?"

"Negative there are civilians in town, unless you can PID your targets' immediate vicinity hold on grenades. Use flash-bangs to clear rooms."

"Roger that Echo-6," his platoon leader replied, disappointment evident in his tone. In urban environment grenades, especially the launched variety, were a soldier's best friends.

"Let's move up with second platoon to the town and start clearing it out," he ordered his staff, who nodded and then followed their leader to the edge next to a fireteam laying out covering fire.

"Cover us we're moving across," his XO commanded, patting the SAW gunner on the helmet who in return gave them a thumbs-up.

"Crossing!" each member of the staff yelled as they ran across the line and charged into the open.

Vega led the way, as a good officer always does, and winced at the cold water that splashed onto his boots as he ran forward, trying hard not to slip on the wet and icy rocks. But he made it across, and aimed right for what appeared to be a greenhouse where a single fireteam had already moved up to. So he ran forward and slid next to the metal walled greenhouse right next to the fireteam leader who he could hear through his helmet talking on his own squad-net.

"You need to move it up, more guys are coming from behind you and a big grouping like this is asking for a grenade or a rocket to be popped at it."

"Don't think the civvies would like their vegetable garden blown up," one of the troopers called out with a laugh.

"No, so let's go fuck up their McDonalds," their team leader said in response, pointing at the double golden arches on top of the building just to the left of the greenhouse, as another fireteam was already clearing the house to their right.

"We'll cover you," the Major called out, patting him on the shoulder and then signaled his staff to provide covering fire.

"Follow me!" the young corporal yelled out, and the four ODST's sprinted across, and a burst of fully automatic fire from an assault rifle in a building fifty meters past the McDonalds opened up on them from across the parking lot.

But the burst was poorly aimed, and the red tracers pounded into the ground, kicking up dust and the only damage was the loud snaps of the supersonic rounds passing nearby the ODST's. This didn't last long, as the seven ODST's of the company HQ saw this and opened fire, letting loose on the Innie in the building. Major Vega didn't know who among them scored the kill shot, but saw the guy spin behind the window as the round impacted his shoulder, more than likely wounding him and he ducked down as the fireteam got up against the painted brick wall of the McDonalds.

At the same moment another fireteam got into cover behind the greenhouse and Vega made an instinctive move to clear that building.

"You men cover us, we're clearing that building past the McDonalds, there was at least one of those fuckers engaging friendlies, we're gonna make sure he's down."

"Roger that sir," the fireteam leader responded and signaled his SAW gunner to take a position to cover them.

"Moving!" Vega yelled out as he sprinted across the open ground to the McDonalds first, where he saw the first fireteam entering through the back door after blowing it off its hinges with several shotgun blasts. His own team took no fire as they made it across and jumped over the low hedges around the drive through before quickly moving along the wall to a point where he could see the small strip mall in front of them.

He could see that it was small, with only three businesses present as part of the small building. One was a dentist's office, another was a diner of some kind, and the third was a barber shop. Each was part of the same building, a white plaster and concrete block with a large patio overhanging the sidewalk with circular columns holding it up, if only for aesthetics. The majority of the store front was glass, except for the window that had shattered after Vega and his group had lit up a single gunman.

"Alright, XO, you take Echo's nine and ten to the first business, I'll take Echo's five, eight, and eleven to the second and we'll start clearing that building. There shouldn't be any civilians in there at this time of night so anything in there will be hostile. Whoever clears first will move through that alley and breach into the rear of the third store and the other team will breach through the front."

"Okay copy that we'll cover you sir," his XO responded and followed his senior officer to the building as the group split up once they reached the building without incident.

Major Vega allowed his Gunny to breach into the diner through a window with a swift kick of his boot and followed he and his messenger/driver into the restaurant. The four ODST's encountered no resistance at first, but as they split into pairs going down both isles of booths a pair Innies jumped up from behind the bar and from the kitchen window. But the ODST's had seen them coming thanks to the untrained manner of the enemy contacts. They'd popped up and then brought their rifles up and around then aimed at the ODST's. This meant their targets were well into cover by the time they fired their first shots.

"One behind the counter, the other in the kitchen," his Gunny said calmly, having gotten a real good look before diving into an isle at the halfway point in the restaurant.

"Gunny you take Park to the left while Wilson and I suppress them," Vega ordered immediately, "Go!"

The Innies had paused to reload and ducked down as two of the ODST's stood up and fired from a hunched over position, and ripped into the metal and wood counter where one of them had been firing from. The other two ODST's ran to the left, sliding to the end of the counter and the youngest of the duo peeked his rifle around and fired a quick four round burst into the space where he knew the enemy to be. He could hear the bullets impacting the unprotected Insurrectionist's body and took a quick peak and saw what could only have been described as a teenager no more than fifteen or sixteen years old wearing a hunting jacket and black beanie with a cheap ammo vest for recreational airsoft or paintball play. He saw the teen move his head slightly, looking at the black armored trooper as he softly coughed up thick red foamy blood and then went limp. But he didn't pay the bleeding teen's body any mind and followed his NCO to the swinging door of the kitchen. At the same time he did that another burst of fire erupted from the kitchen, aimed right at the door, creating five circular holes at stomach level and then another burst fired from the same window as earlier.

"Two of them, one in front of the door, the other by the window. We'll flash it out and then breach, I'll take the front you take right," the older ODST commanded calmly as he pulled out the small cylindrical device and tapped the button and prepared to release it as his younger counter-part did the same and went to the window where several gunshots were still firing from.

"Ready," he responded and got a nod and a 'go' from the NCO.

He then popped it in through the window, hearing the frenzied yelling of another teenage voice as he rushed to the side of his comrade who'd held open the door before tossing the weapon inside. Two loud bangs and the accompanying flashes of light rewarded them and they rushed in. The Gunny caught sight of his target, an Innie wearing a dark blue vest, stolen from the local police station and aimed for the red baseball cap on his head instead, and made it even more red with two shots as he saw his younger counterpart get his second shot a kill with a single shot center mass into a young girl who dropped her weapon after the shot penetrated her stolen Kevlar vest and writhed on the ground clutching her stomach and the ODST's could hear her pitifully crying in pain, ignoring the UNSC troopers in front of her. The young Corporal instinctively moved to finish the job, aiming at her head, but hesitated.

"I-I can't," the young NCO said quietly as he aimed his rifle, he'd never killed before now, and certainly never shot a girl. So it was tough, as it was for any soldier.

"It's alright kid," his comrade said, before calling to Major Vega, "Sir, we got a wounded one."

Vega walked in with his JTAC, who was carrying the Combat Life Saving Kit in the HQ detachment tonight and he knelt down and switched on his speakers to talk to her after he yanked away a single grenade hanging off of the belt on her jeans.

"You'll live, but it will hurt quite a lot."

"Give her something for the pain," Vega ordered him as he stood over her as he was handed pair of flexicuffs from the young corporal, "You're lucky you're alive kid. That vest saved your life. We'll bandage you up and restrain you here. A medic will be around later after we finish up."

The young girl nodded, her eyes still shut tight as she was still in quite a lot of pain. Major Vega roughly pulled her arms up and away from her bleeding wound and yanked the plastic restrainers on behind the aluminum leg of the table alongside pans and pots. After he opened up her Kevlar vest the JTAC injected her with some biofoam which got a sharp cry from her as it was poured on and then tightly wrapped with a bandage which satisfied the ODST's who prepared to move on after he hit her with a shot of morphine.

"Bullet barely penetrated. She only got a few fragments, so long as a medic gets to her within the next hour or two she'll be fine," the lieutenant said nonchalantly, confident he did his job well.

Vega could see his messenger's posture relax visibly as they prepared to go out the front door once they checked the rest of the kitchen and saw no one else inside. After seeing that the other half of the HQ element was already in the alley Vega led his team to the dentist office, checking through the window and saw a blood trail from where one of his men's bullets had found their target. He carefully made his way through the broken window, wincing as the glass crunched beneath his feet. But the sounds of battle were now loud enough that someone with excellent hearing would not necessarily notice it.

His HUD followed the blood trail, lighting it up in red and following it to a restroom just off to the right, and saw that it ended right under the only door there. He saw his team understood that their quarry was in there and stacked up, aiming right at the door before Vega kicked in the cheap plywood door. They didn't see anything at first but their foe didn't hold his nerve, and charged out into the open from the bathroom stall, pistol in his left hand as his right one was held against his chest, a bloody set of paper towels pressed to it like the ones scattered on the ground. He got off a single shot before his team riddled his body with a handful of close range rounds that tore apart his military style coat and caused him to just collapse onto his back, arms outstretched as he fell with blood staining the white tiles in a quick forming pool.

"Bathroom clear," Vega sounded out before following the JTAC to the swinging door when they heard a several automatic gunshots fire.

The JTAC quickly turned right around the corner and saw a single Insurrectionist with an M247 General Purpose Machine Gun firing from the hip with the gun hanging from a homemade sling as he fired at the back of the hall. The JTAC shot him in the back, cutting through the backpack on his back along with spoiling his dark brown leather jacket. He stepped forward and then felt his weapon grabbed and then forced up against his throat as he was pushed against the wall of the thin hallway. An Innie had been in an office doorway he hadn't seen and then leaped upon the ODST.

However the rebel didn't see the looming figure of the other three, and the closest one was Gunnery Sergeant Lucas, who snapped his rifle up and clubbed the heavily bearded man right in the side of the head, knocking the individual to the ground. Once there both he and the JTAC fired point black into the guy's chest, finishing him off. After checking a storage room and three examination rooms the ODST's correctly surmised that the building was now clear. Only now did Major Vega tune back into the larger battle.

His Blue Force Tracker told him his ODST's had suffered no casualties aside from one man wounded by shrapnel to the hand and another hit in the shoulder by a sniper that was still pinning down an entire street for the time being. But his platoons were advancing steadily and methodically, clearing out what his HUD was telling him was a twenty percent of the town's total area. None of his platoon leaders had called out on the company-net which was good. But he saw eight gray symbols on the map for vehicles that been knocked out or were not operating, only one of them a tank. So he knew his men were either capturing or destroying enemy vehicles with relative ease but the battle was far from over.

"Echo-6, Warlord, how copy?" his radio crackled as he got the call from the pilot of the Sparrowhawk gunship that was seemingly deployed already.

"Copy you five-by-five Warlord," he called out in response, a smile on his face knowing their air support had arrived.

"Roger Echo-6, Warlord is inbound with two times Sparrowhawks to support Echo. ETA two mikes."

"Roger that Warlord," Major Vega responded, "My JTAC will coordinate on all CAS requests."

"Copy that Echo-6."

Major Vega walked out through the broken window as his team walked out as the popping and chattering of the gunfire from rifles and machine guns continued on unabated. The battle was still in full swing as he and his HQ unit carefully jogged over to the corner just short of the street. He saw a fireteam running down the street, rifles and machine gun to their shoulders as they passed five or six buildings before stopping at a house. The group's leader checked a window but a flash from a rifle shattered the window and the man flinched down before standing back up and firing a fully automatic burst into the window. The other ODST's ran past him and kicked in the door and a loud bang as a grenade went off inside. But his HUD didn't indicate that anyone was injured, and a set of shots must have put the resistance in that house down.

"Oh shit! Tank, that's a tank!" someone yelled from in front of him as two ODST's scrambled off of a balcony on a house and got into cover.

"Scorpion at one-eight-zero! One two zero meters and closing."

"It's got a lot of infantry behind it and a technical," someone else said as the tank came up over the hill and Major Vega got his first look at it.

"Wilson! Get Warlord on that fucker!" Vega ordered his JTAC who proceeded with calling in the air support.

And within a few seconds the first missile impacted right into the engine block beneath the turret, cooking off the entire vehicle which lurched into the air four feet in the back and crashed down with the turret blown nearly ten feet into the air and smashed down on one of the engine nacelles and rolled onto the ground. Fire illuminated the more than twenty Insurrectionists who had followed the tank like a human snowball effect and were now without the only thing that they'd believed would make them safe.

Vega and every other ODST was now picking them off with expert precision, letting loose at anything that moved as the truck in the back of the back spit out tracers from the M247H fifty caliber machine gun mounted on the bed at the inky black of the night. But Warlord picked off the vehicle with a squeeze of the trigger and ripped the vehicle apart with a line of red tracers from the dual chin mounted thirty millimeters cannons on the aircraft. Although the ODST's couldn't see it, aside from the yellow flashes of the HE rounds striking it, the vehicle was eviscerated along with any other infantry that turned and ran as the ODST's advanced down the road once more, picking off several wounded Innies who weren't going to make it, and stopping to clear a bar that had a SAW open up on them from within.

Vega got up to an alley and looked down the decline of the road, seeing it dead-end at a line of tall buildings that he knew were three story apartment blocks. A full squad was already breaching the building and he looked to his HUD to see that two of his platoons had already made it most of the way into town with only the docks and main residential area remaining.

Another explosion further into town where he knew the police station and primary Insurrectionist fortifications were signaled the cataclysmic destruction of the final Scorpion in the town and a long series of cannon fire signaled the end of either a lot of vehicles or a lot of infantry.

"Be advised Echo-6 Warlord has engaged and destroyed one times Scorpion and eight times other armed and unarmed vehicles in a motor pool near the police station," his radio signaled, informing him of what it was his air support had accomplished.

"Roger that Warlord, interrogative: do you have eyes on any more hostile infantry?"

"That's an affirm Echo-11, we have eyes on many infantry groups still milling around the center of town, request permission to engage with guns."

"Negative Warlord, we have confirmed civilians in town, can't risk civilian casualties."

"Break, break, break!" Warlord called out, obviously seeing something really important, "Be advised Echo-6, Warlord has eyes on large number of enemy vehicles breaking from town along the beach. Believe enemy may be pulling out of the AO."

"Warlord engage, take 'em out!" Vega instantly yelled out, hearing the dual ducted air fans pass overhead as both AV-22 Sparrowhawks charged after the retreating rebels and tore into them with rocket and cannon fire.

The horizon flashed and glowed yellow several times as it intermingled with the thick black smoke rising from a dozen places throughout the town and now several columns began rising from outside of town. The ODST's didn't have that great a view, but they could see the Sparrowhawks working the rebels over back and forth along the beach, disabling every vehicle from front to rear until they were all either stopped or burning on the gravel beach, and their occupants began to get picked off one by one. The massacre was a godsend for the ODST's, rarely did the Innies allow themselves to get caught in the open like that and usually stuck to difficult to access urban environments or the most remote regions that the UNSC couldn't reach with such powerful gunships or large ground forces. They'd be able to count the bodies later, but they were quite certain that by the number of explosions and how long the Sparrow hawks took there must have been quite a few of them.

"All platoons continue advance, looks like the Innies tried hightailing it out of here with a lot of their vehicles so we shouldn't be facing too many more," Major Vega called out, eager to push forward with this new momentum at their backs.

He got winks of confirmation as he looked at his tacmap and saw his troopers continue their advance. Satisfied with the rapid progress he scrolled over to the other objectives. Alpha and Bravo were still in contact at the airfield, and were just now getting to half of the base, although they had yet to secure the main barracks area. But they'd suffered seven wounded in action, two quite severely according to the red on their names and ranks. Charlie had taken one dead already in the drop itself, and hadn't suffered any more fatalities but had taken two more wounded. But their objective was all but secured. Delta was nearly identical to Echo, no fatalities and four lightly wounded, but they had taken their objective. Twelve Sparrowhawks were now patrolling the battlefield with a pair of Pelicans circling high overhead, just in case they were needed for medivac.

"Echo-6, Echo-4, be advised we've got a few Innies starting to surrender sir," Lieutenant Hathaway called out.

"Roger Echo-4, do you have a count on hostiles surrendering?" Vega responded as he ran up to a very large domed greenhouse right behind the large but thin apartment building.

"Wait one," she said before hopping onto her platoon net and then came back after getting a solid figure, "Echo-4-2 has nine Innies in custody."

"Roger that, secure your prisoners and bring them to my position at this big fucking greenhouse. Task a fireteam with it and stay clear of the advancing frontline."

"Copy, 4-2-Bravo is escorting prisoners to your pos."

"Let's check this greenhouse, see if it's been cleared first," his XO suggested, lining up next to the glass entrance to the large public building.

"Breaching," their property NCO called out, the Sergeant pushing in through the door with rifle and grenade launcher brought to bear. A single assault rifle burst caused he and the XO to duck down behind a desk as Vega and the other two NCO's rushed in as well weapons blazing.

They could see four or five different individuals firing from the other side behind a counter past the rows of privately planted vegetables and flowers and behind a pair of small trees planted in large pots at each entrance to the dirt floor. They popped just their weapons up and fired, aiming blindly, scared of being hit. None of the rounds were really coming close to hitting the ODST's who were pumping a lot of lead into the concrete barrier at the end as they too advanced to their own barrier. The whole thing was circular, going all the way unbroken with stacks of fertilizer, pots, garden tools, and large bags of potting soil stacked like bunkers.

"XO, take Sergeant Dunphy to the left, I'll take Corporal Park with me to the right. Wilson you and the Gunny give us some cover," the Major commanded as another ODST fireteam burst in, running to the sounds of gunshots, "Hold it!" he yelled to the ODST's, "Go around, come up from behind! There's an entrance to the greenhouse back there."

"Roger!" the Sergeant at the head of the fireteam responded and ducked back outside as his SAW gunner laid out a burst of fire to cover them.

"Go!" Vega commanded, moving hunched over with his rifle aimed from the hip, looking at the deserted makeshift barriers real quick before continuing to hug the concrete countertop. He could hear the gunfire of his other men pounding away at the hostiles' barriers, taking large pieces out of it before he heard a forty millimeter go off right against it, the fragmentation round blowing a small hole in the wall in the middle.

Vega saw the IFF tags of other ODST's he'd ordered around the building show up right to the right of the door and Vega saw an option reveal itself. So he switched to Echo-2-2's radio frequency and called out to the fireteam.

"Two-Two-Bravo, flash 'em out, see if we can't take them prisoner," he commanded the ODST's.

"Roger, flash in five," the Sergeant responded instantly, having already decided to flash the enemy beforehand, although taking them prisoner was not what he'd had in mind, "Flash out!"

In the moment the door swung open and a pair of flash bang grenades was rolled into the room where they were noticed by the Innies. Shouts from behind the counter greeted the grenades which went off and the ODST's stormed in, shining their flashlights on their rifles at their opponents. Eight ODST's rushed forward, aiming at individual targets, all seven of them on their knees or on the ground, weapons aimed down or dropped entirely as they tried to recover. The yelling of the ODST's didn't quite register as they blinked away the white blindness in their eyes to be confronted with the barrels of assault rifles aimed at them.

It was now that Vega was glad he'd ordered them to capture these Insurrectionists, as they were all just teenagers, the oldest of them probably not even old enough to buy a beer. And each kid obediently and groggily put their hands in the air and dropped their weapons, scooting back against the wall. Each had on a jacket or hoodie with some hats and a single police helmet with the visor removed. They'd all been given police Kevlar vests that were all way too big for them. Especially the only one that was wounded.

He was the smallest of them, and he was curled into a fetal position with both hands holding his leg which had a piece of rebar from the blown apart concrete sticking out from his calf. He was now heard wailing in fear and pain and every ODST, no matter how much experience they'd gained over their years of service, could really stomach this. The boy couldn't have been more than twelve years old and they all just stared, almost in shock before two of their number pulled out their own emergency first aid kits and got to work. And Vega finally got his senses back and started giving commands.

"Secure these prisoners," he ordered to the other two fireteam members who nodded and began roughly grabbing each kid and forcing them to their knees against the wall.

"Fuckin' Innies," his Property NCO growled, seeing the youngest kid get held down by the medic as he tried working on him.

"Secure their weapons Sergeant," Vega said calmly as he walked over to his XO.

"Damned kids, they're fighting us with goddamn kids," the man growled as he ripped a stack of shovels from their place against the wall in frustration.

"Friendlies comin' in with prisoners!" a voice called out as more ODST's made their way into the greenhouse.

Vega looked over, seeing the green outlined forms of four ODST's walking in, roughly shoving nine Insurrectionist prisoners along. Most were military age men, with a couple old men and a single military age woman among them. The ODST sergeant for Echo-4 saluted the Major who returned it half-heartedly as his men lined the prisoners against the wall next to the kids they'd already captured, brutally kicking the back of their knees to force them to the ground if their speed didn't suit the troopers.

However Vega saw one of the kids do a double take when he saw the adult Insurrectionist next to him and Vega saw him whisper to the adult who in return hissed something at him to keep him quiet. The kid hurriedly snapped his gaze back forward, hoping none of the ODST's saw that. But they had, and Vega himself stomped over to the older man wearing a black beret with the white fist emblem of the URF and grabbed him by the handle on the back of his armored chest piece, a stolen bit of UNSC armor and yanked him back and one of the other ODST's shined a light in the guy's face, revealing a fully bearded man in his twenties or thirties.

"Who are you?!" Vega snapped loudly over his speakers, but the man's gaze held to the black visor of the ODST major and he just smirked.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" the man laughed.

Vega then stood up and signaled two ODST's to hold him firmly and then Vega turned and roughly grabbed the teen by his hood and his vest and almost threw him in front of the man as two ODST PFC's grabbed him, one holding ripping the guy's beret off and tugging on his hair as a third held a flashlight to his face.

"You recognized him kid, who is this?" Vega demanded, grabbing the boy by the back of the neck so he was facing the bearded man.

"I-I don't know…" the boy whimpered, averting his eyes from the death glare of the older rebel.

"You're lying," Vega snarled, gripping tighter.

"I swear!" the kid yelled.

"Tell me now while you have a choice!" Vega growled, again, wrapping his arm around the kid's neck.

"Don't say a word," the man lowly grumbled.

"Shut up!" his XO snapped, firing a shot from his Automag into the guy's calf causing him to scream in agony as the other ODST's held him firm.

"You see?" Vega whispered, "Think he's bad? Think he's tough? But look at him now. He's someone you all feared, isn't he?"

"Y-yes…"

"He's the guy making kids fight us?" Vega whispered, but the boy hesitated, "Isn't he?!"

"No!"

"Then who is he?!"

"Colonel Jamal Prescott!" the boy yelled finally, "He-he's the commander on the island."

"That wasn't so hard was it?" Vega said with a much more kind voice as he gently released the kid and stood up ruffling the long brown hair on his head, "Take him to the roof and get a Pelican to pick him up."

"Yes sir," his XO responded, "you two, on me."

Another ODST moved the boy back against the wall as Vega now noticed that the gunfire had subsided outside, with only a few potshots sounding out. He checked his tacmap, and saw that the rest of the company had seemingly taken the town with the only resistance coming from the school building at the middle of town.

"Alright, I think we've got a PCP now, Park!" Vega called out, signaling his messenger/driver.

"Sir."

"Take two of these men and get that girl we patched up at that diner and bring her over here," he ordered before turning to the other six ODST's, "One of you guys got a stretcher?"

"I do sir," one of the SAW gunners piped up.

"Alright take him and one more and go get her."

"Thank you sir," the man said as if a weight had been lifted on his shoulders and tapped one of the other ODST's and ordered him to follow.

"HQ on me," Vega called out, signaling the other three ODST's of his HQ unit to follow him out the door and see what else needed doing, "Echo-6, all stations mission status?"

"Echo-1 is clear. Hostiles fell back to the docks, we're clearing to the lighthouse to cover Echo-2."

"Echo-2 confirms, clearing docks now, encountering light resistance."

"Some of them are willing to surrender, see if you can get them to give themselves up if you get them cornered," Vega called out as he ran down a street towards the school building.

"Roger Echo-6."

"Echo-3 is still in heavy contact at the school, they've got it fortified pretty heavily."

"Echo-4 has cleared to the docks and has captured what's left of the motor pool and the police station."

"Roger Echo-4, move to assist Echo-3, explosives are cleared for use on the school building, should only be hostiles in there at this time of night."

"Copy Echo-6, moving to provide fire support."

Almost immediately after that a handful of forty millimeter grenade explosions signaled that the ODST's had really taken the lift on grenades to heart. And perhaps they'd taken out a bit of childhood fantasy on getting to blow up a school. But it didn't take long before Major Vega got to where the school stood upon a large grass lot scattered with pockets of snow near or underneath several evergreen trees along the sidewalk leading to the school itself. He could already see dust settling from the explosions of the grenade launchers from his own troopers settling.

One had started a fire within the building if the orange glow and smoke pouring from one of the second story windows was anything to go by. He could see several teams of ODST's advancing as lines of tracers pummeled the building from across the street. A pair of Warthogs were out front with the bodies of three Innies on the ground and another laid hanging from the passenger seat of the one in the rear. But before his troops got inside the building a tremendous explosion stopped them. The school's entire science wing was engulfed in a massive orange fireball. Secondary explosions sent a multi-colored array of flame shooting from the roof as the flames spread and smoke rose from the building in a sickly black plume visible for miles. The entire town was glowing a dull orange from the intense flames that caught the tinder box of a building on fire within moments thanks to the help of a powerful southerly wind from the sea.

Insurrectionists burst from several windows and doors to escape, firing wildly as they tried escaping. But over seventy ODST's were waiting, and mowed down those who raised their weapons. Thankfully for many several of the troops yelled at them to come on out with their hands up and to leave their weapons to the flames or face instant death. Over thirty chose to surrender unlike a dozen or so of their comrades who were sprawled upon the lawn letting them know what faced them if they tried anything.

Major Vega had watched from a distance, letting his platoon and squad leaders command their men. And he was proud, especially seeing the roster on his HUD blank of the ultimate black mark of KIA. By now gunfire was absent, replaced by ammunition going off that had been stored within the school by the Innies. He checked his HUD one last time and breathed a sigh of relief to see that his objective had been accomplished. The town was firmly under UNSC control, and he wouldn't have to write any letters tomorrow morning. And to finish off this mission he heard the battalion commander over the command frequency call out.

"All stations this net, index, all objectives secured, mission complete, mission complete, mission complete."

 **There we are guys, just a long super-realism combat chapter to start off this story I'd had milling around in my head from time to time. Thanks for getting to the end of this really long chapter guys and to those of you who hit the review, follow or favorite buttons you also have my thanks. Now for my Author's Notes and I do suggest you read these as this is rather important to this story.**

 **I WILL NOT HAVE THE COVENANT OR FORERUNNERS IN THIS STORY. END OF DISCUSSION.**

 **I might however have a Spartan Team make an appearance once or twice for some Spec Ops type missions. Now to some changes I will make with this story. A lot of you will ask about why these UNSC units had AV-22 "Sparrowhawks" as their air support rather than Hornets. My response is simple. The Hornet to me always seemed analogous to our Little Birds, small agile, and more meant for special operations than being a mainstay for combat air support. And the Sparrowhawks seemed more like Apaches or Cobras, more heavily armed and armored for dealing with air support to the frontline. And I will also be using a somewhat modified version of the organization, radio, and terminology terms for the UNSC. It will be based on the USMC and US Army's own practices as that is my primary source of information.**

 **This story will also be primarily action oriented, kinda like a cheap popcorn action movie here in the USA, done just because…'Merica that's why. It's a ton of fun writing this, and I'm hoping you guys will enjoy it too. And I would also like to thank the 506** **th** **IR, an Arma 3 Realism Unit for providing the properly demonstrated radio protocols and general military simulation that I primarily refer to when doing these types of action scenes.**

 **Next Chapter Preview: The Marines land and get into the fight.**


	2. Chapter 2

**IMPORTANT NOTE: I have added some things that a future military organization would do or have that Bungie and 343 didn't know about when they first made Halo. Some additions are reactive armor and multi-spectral camouflage. However, I will keep the…oddly exposed Warthogs' turrets, but will have gull-wing doors added to them. The logic here being that speed and rapid and unrestricted dismount overrules the added protection of modern MRAP's seeing as the Army Troopers, Marines, and ODST's who operate them already have excellent body armor themselves. The Scorpions will keep their two-man crew and co-axial HMG, with the driver being the vehicle commander. None of the vehicle upgrades will be present like they are in Halo Wars.**

Chapter 2

Location: Planet Dyonisis, Delta Xi System

Date: January 22, 2524

Time: 0500 Zulu

"Marines gear up!" Lieutenant Samantha McCoy called out to her Marine platoon from where they were unloading their gear off of their Warthogs and the large dropships that had brought their unit down to the planet along with their vehicles, "Squad Leaders on me!"

Standing beside the young Marine second lieutenant was a man each Marine Sergeant groaned at seeing. In a suit of dark gray fatigues and unique armor and helmet was an ONI Captain. ONI always meant something bad, and starting out the campaign with a run for ONI is a bad sign of things to come. So the three Sergeants and the platoon Staff Sergeant stood with their helmets under their arms before their platoon leader just waiting to hear what sort of chore ONI wanted them for.

"Gentlemen this is Captain Lynch, Office of Naval Intelligence. We've been ordered to give him a hand," she said with a grumble, turning to the older man, "Captain, care to brief us?"

"This way Lieutenant, Sergeants," he said calmly, moving towards a small hangar that was being worked on by some engineers to get some fortifications up in front of the entrance, "Clear the hangar gentlemen."

The engineers saw him and saluted without a word and walked away to the Elephant that they were using to move around the concrete barriers that would have made the hangar a fortified position. So with the engineers gone the five of them walked over to one of the walls and the ONI captain laid down a small palm-sized holographic projector which hummed to life and projected a 3-D image of the terrain they were headed towards.

It was on the coast, with the ocean out to the East with a sheltered bay housing a small village in the back of it. It was no more than two dozen buildings hugging the gravelly beach. There were several small plots of land between it and the thick pine forest with a ridgeline overlooking the town with a road cut from the terrain going into and out of the town running north to south. A large number of fishing vessels, some being decently sized, were docked at the wooden docks where the only seemingly commercial area of town was. The rest were low houses randomly placed among a great many trees growing in yards and on the grassy medians. Many had some orchards lined in their own private plots.

Highlighted near that village was what appeared to be a small farm, nestled next to an old dam built across a large creek in a steep gorge to the west of the village with power lines feeding along the gorge to town at a power distribution center near the docks. This place was where their objective was located.

"This is the village of Albacore, population four hundred, give or take a few dozen. It's about five klicks north of here," Captain Lynch said to start their briefing, "And this is the Perch Creek Dam next to this farm just a klick west of Albacore. This is ONI's only presence on the planet. Its codename is Outpost WAYPOINT. It might not look like it but ONI had an undercover field office stationed here tapping into the Innies' communications all this time. A week ago we lost contact with our two agents stationed there, we're presuming they've been captured or killed but the AI operating the equipment there is still active and transmitting. Our mission is a simple one, get to that AI and its equipment before the Insurrection finds it."

"I'm assuming that we're also clearing this village and the dam to maintain appearances, am I right?" Lieutenant McCoy asked.

"That and the Innies have what our intelligence believes is a sizeable number of drones operating from this village. From what we've seen," he said calmly, tapping on his wrist controller to bring up a 3-D image of a drone aircraft with propeller in the rear with two forked tails and rockets mounted on the winds and a camera underneath its nose, "They've begun operating them by adding floats to the underbellies and making them seaplanes. The damage they can realistically do is minimal but they can sure use them to coordinate and recon our positions."

"So we move to the village, clear it, and then retrieve the AI and secure the farm?" McCoy asked.

"In a nutshell Lieutenant," Lynch responded evenly.

"Sounds easy enough," her Staff Sergeant, a grizzled old veteran by the name of Harvey, grumbled under his breath, expecting more than something this easy.

"It would be, but there's a hitch," Lynch replied, holding up a hand, "This dam is home to a sizeable presence of URF militia. These aren't locals with guns at this location. These are some offworld fanatics with blood on their hands, call themselves the Vengeance Brigade."

"I've heard of these guys," one of the other sergeants growled, "They claimed credit for ambushing a Colonial Guard unit on Arcadia after kidnapping and murdering the governor."

"They're nasty alright," Lynch responded, tapping his wrist controller again to zoom in on the dam, "Our orbital photos show they've got quite a few vehicles. Mostly a mix of technicals and Warthogs with some high end small arms and maybe some Scorpions have been seen coming and going from a garage here on the northern end of the power station near the dam."

The hologram changed to highlight a box on the northern end below ground that led out to a parking lot that was fortified with hesco barriers a single small guard tower, and concrete barriers to supplement the tall concrete and razor wire tipped wall already in place. Aside from the main sandbag surrounded guard shack at the entrance were a pair older concrete buildings that were probably power distribution buildings of some kind. A jungle gym of metal spires and frameworks sent out a quartet of electrical cables held up by metal spires along the only road that led to the facility. Even these buildings had sandbags stacked high along their whole perimeter and had concrete barriers in front of their doors. They were along the tall wall that had a metal staircase making its way down to water level.

The whole facility wasn't all that large, the dam itself measured in at about fifty meters wide and twenty meters tall. At its base was the power plant, with two turbines, one on each side of the gorge built of the same worn concrete and built into the sides of the terrain to limit exposure to the harsh elements. What buildings it did have exposed were circular, built atop of one another along the northern end like a triple layer cake with a central control room sitting atop a rocky outcropping on level with the garage itself. Each building's roof was also a balcony for the building below it, with the water gushing out of the last two largest buildings closest to the bottom. On the dam itself there were roadblocks situated around the cylindrical buildings with hesco barriers, concrete and steel barricades, and curls of razor wire with one or two vehicles keeping their presences felt.

"I sure hope you don't think one Marine infantry platoon can take on a force like this," McCoy stated plainly.

"Not to worry, we'll have air support from a Vulture and armored support from a pair of Scorpions."

"Now that's what I like to hear," one of the sergeants said calmly, "But…how many militants are we looking at?"

"In town there's more than likely no more than twenty or thirty, mostly locals with captured military grade light weapons and no vehicles. As for this spot here, our intel says there's maybe fifty to eighty of them and our thermal images support a similar number. More importantly, some of those morons have posted on social media that their leader is present at that location," Lynch stated plainly, hitting another button to bring up the image of a single petite black-haired woman wearing a patchwork of antiquated armor with a red beret, "Rosa de Villenueva, calls herself The Amazon. Her parents were Insurrectionist leaders before a UNSC airstrike killed them eight years ago so she hates us."

"Enough to start her own terrorist group it seems."

"Yep, she's got a thing for executing hostages herself with a machete,"

"Nice chick," one of the sergeants grumbled.

"ONI wants her dead or alive. Preferably alive," Lynch informed them, "But it's not pivotal to today's mission, her and her little boy band are a secondary objective. After all, they made the mistake of being placed on an island."

"If we've got tanks and air support it'll be a cakewalk," McCoy added, getting nods from her squad leaders.

"Glad to hear it Lieutenant, ONI would like to get this mission off its chest. And an HVT on the report will give us a trophy to hold up to press. Meet me at the front gate in ten minutes."

"Okay then, squad leaders, brief your Marines," McCoy commanded as she turned to her men who saluted the twenty-three year old lieutenant.

The Marines fell out as their ONI supervisor picked up his holographic projector and stowed it before putting on his helmet. Outside it was beginning to snow lightly, making the conditions that much more treacherous for the numerous dropships of all sizes coming and going with troops, vehicles, and equipment. Already over a thousand UNSC Marines were on the ground, pushing inland, and securing a larger foothold on the island, not allowing the Insurrectionists to recover from their sudden attack from orbit with the entirety of the 312th ODST Battalion. Hundreds of Warthogs along with dozens of Scorpion Tanks and Cougar Armored Fighting Vehicles were rolling out to whatever objectives they were assigned to. The unit in charge of the capture of this island was the 146th Marine Regiment, a veteran and storied unit like the others within the task force on this campaign.

The 146th was already pushing out, with the chattering of machine guns and the popping of rifles being droned out every so often by an explosion from either grenades, rockets, or the heavy main guns of tanks. Sparrowhawks and Pelicans zoomed over the battlefield, lining up rocket and gun runs or pin point missile strikes as Shortsword bombers roamed the skies, ready to drop their ordinance. There were even twelve M145A1 "Rhino" 155mm Self-Propelled Howitzers positioning themselves to prepare to take on fire missions within one of the parking lots along the northern fence. Each of them, like the other UNSC vehicles, was colored with a winter woodland pattern of dark greens, whites, grays, and browns upon a full mesh-like sheet of multi-spectral camouflage.

The light of the new day was already starting to glow slightly off in the distance as morning fast approached. The massive forms of two UNSC Frigates hovered above the island, their guns firing every so often as targets became available. All in all, it was a classic example of a campaign of rapid dominance, or shock and awe as it was known to the media, who were also here as well, placed at the main control tower where several reporters were being followed by their semi-autonomous camera drones, hovering in front of them as they went about their jobs.

The Marine platoon split up into its three squads after Lieutenant McCoy gave them a simplified mission briefing. Here the sergeants gave them a more detailed brief, and ordered them to leave their more personal gear, and loaded up with extra ammunition for their rocket launchers and small arms along with an additional drum of fifty caliber rounds and rockets for their triple barrel anti-tank rocket Hogs and anti-air missile Hogs. Thankfully their platoon guide, Sergeant Holiday, was an expert scrounger, and had contacts throughout the supply chain to get them all the ammo, rations, and equipment they might need. He'd even secured additional packs of medical supplies for their single M832 Medic Hog. As they were preparing two M808B Scorpions pulled up next to the group Warthogs with Captain Lynch standing on the lead tank.

"We ready Lieutenant?" Lynch called out as he hopped down from the tank.

"Yes sir, just getting our gear stowed."

"Very well, our air support is on station now, and will shadow us to the east over the water at an altitude of five hundred feet. I'll ride with you in your command vehicle if that's alright."

"As long as you're not looking to take tactical command of my Marines we'll be glad to have ya," McCoy said, nodding to her unarmed Warthog sitting second in line of the convoy of eleven Warthogs.

"Not planning to," he said with a chuckle, "The only time I'll take charge is when we reach my objective."

"Roger that," McCoy said calmly as she walked towards her Warthog where her platoon sergeant was already seated in the driver's seat.

The two seater Command Hog was outfitted with several powerful radios and no turret, the vehicle was a basic model, being a platoon command vehicle and not a more complex company command Warthog. And it sure wasn't a battalion command vehicle, which was normally a modified Elephant which served as engineering vehicles or command vehicles for the battalion to division level. But, it did the job so long as her driver didn't put it in a direct field of fire.

"Our designation is Anvil, the tanks are designated Tiger, and our air support is Warlord," her Staff Sergeant said, and saw the appropriate labels find their way onto her Blue Force Tracker with their objectives out to the north.

The town was designated X-Ray, the ONI location was designated as Yankee, and the dam was designated Zulu. There was a black dot on their HUD's map with the word "Dismount" on it, where they'd leave their troop transports behind and maneuver on foot over the ridgeline to an overwatch point into the small village. On the village itself were three segmented diamonds with the times underneath them. These symbolized enemy infantry presence. It didn't surprise her, there were roadblocks set up at both ends of town with old trucks, dumpsters, and anything else they could get their hands on. In the middle was a sandbag and hesco barrier fortification with a pillbox in the center built around a statue at the only major intersection in town. It made sense there'd be some hostiles there.

"All stations this net comms check," McCoy called out on her radio after slipping on her helmet and pulling a balaclava over her face to add to the warmth her fully sealed helmet gave her and the rest of the platoon. She activated her night vision, getting the classic green tinted view that the device gave her.

On her HUD she got blue winks from each vehicle, seeing as they were on a convoy net, they'd go to platoon net when they dismounted. She took a tablet stored under the dashboard of the Warthog and traced out her convoy's route to the dismount point, staying along the main road that was already been secured by Marine units pushing northwards.

"Convoy, Anvil Six, route highlighted on HUD, all vehicles roll out," she said calmly and saw the red brake lights turn off as the convoy started moving, "Warlord, Anvil Six."

"Send it for Warlord Anvil Six," the voice of their air cover called out in response.

"Warlord convoy is oscar mike to Objective X-Ray, interrogative has the airspace been secured enough for you to get eyes on the convoy's objectives?"

"That's an affirm Anvil-6, _Sacremento_ is jamming hostile anti-air with ECM and we are at altitude where no small arms can do any damage,"

"Roger that Warlord, mark all targets on Blue Force."

"Interrogative, are we weapons free on any targets at objectives?"

"Negative Warlord," McCoy immediately snapped, "There are confirmed civilians at Objective X-Ray and Objective Yankee is needed intact and Objective Zulu is a dam, if it goes catastrophic damage will be caused to civilians downstream. If hostiles are not in the objective areas feel free to engage after you PID your targets."

"Roger that Anvil-6, we're beginning thermal scans."

By now the convoy was pulling through the main gate of the captured airbase. There were MP's shuttling them out as they drove along the road. They were moving at a good clip, but were slower than normal thanks to the tanks in their midst which weren't nearly as speedy as the smaller Warthogs. The force drove along the road with lights off to avoid any mortar or artillery attacks from the Insurrectionists who were launching random rockets or mortar shells at the UNSC-held territory. They passed burning hulks of a trio of technicals with the bodies of at least fifteen Insurrectionists laid out in the ditch covered by white tarps with a pair of MP's in a Warthog going through their identities.

They passed through a small village with a burning M841 "Cougar" Armored Fighting Vehicle crashed against a house. More bodies were being tended to by other MP's and several civilians lifting them into flatbed trucks with ODST's looking over them on the roofs and balconies of a few buildings and at the road blocks still intact in town. The convoy also saw the pillar of flames that had consumed a school building in the only large town in the immediate area as they passed it and turned north, moving along the coast so their guns would be facing the only way they could be shot at. The glimmering of the ocean was barely visible as the snow continued to come down in a light drizzle.

Their trip was quiet, with only the distant sounds of combat coming to their ears. But they managed to reach a small gas station along the coast with its lights still on and a single civilian car and a single pickup truck parked in front of it. Beside the small gas station was a small garage with a lift in it and a small house behind it. They could see a single old man standing behind the counter as he watched the large convoy come to a stop in front of the building. He then watched with worry on his face as the three transport Hogs and the passengers of the other Warthogs dismounted and the two Scorpions pulled ahead down the road and came to a stop.

"We move on foot from here," McCoy yelled out as she stood on her seat, "Lock down the troop Hogs, leave 'em here."

"You heard the eltee, secure those vehicles!" her second squad's leader, Sergeant Zhou, yelled loudly.

However the ONI captain sitting in the back of the command vehicle noticed something through the window. The old man behind the counter was eyeballing them. Through his golden Recon helmet's visor he made out the man turning around, and looking back at them before picking up a phone. Captain Lynch then rapidly hit a button on his right wrist and then twisted a knob which blocked and jammed all radio and wireless telephone communications within a hundred meters. He smirked as he jumped off of the Warthog and saw the man looking at the phone and try dialing again.

"Lieutenant, we've got ourselves a lookout in there," he said confidently, calling over a pair of Marines who saw what he was pointing at.

"That piece of shit," Lieutenant McCoy growled before stomping over to the door behind two of her Marines.

"Drop the phone!" of the Marines immediately yelled as they aimed their MA5B's at the man.

"Hands where we can see 'em!" the other commanded, thumbing his safety to check to be certain it was off.

The old bearded man hesitated before he stepped backwards, and then they all saw the semi-automatic shotgun sitting on a rack above a pegboard full of cigarettes, tobacco, and cigars. They had a good idea of what he was going to do.

"I can't be taken alive," he whispered with desperation in his voice, "You don't understand what they'll do to my family."

"We can help with that," one of the Marines calmly stated.

"No, you can't."

"Don't do it pal," Lieutenant McCoy said, holding a hand out to try and coax him not to do this. Her eyes spotted something on the shelf next to her, some powdered donuts. So she picked a couple bags off of the shelf and held them up for him to see, "I saw these when I came in, they're my favorite. I was hoping I'd be able to buy some because we hadn't had breakfast. I can't do that if you don't let me."

The man looked at her with softening eyes, but just sighed.

"I'm sorry."

Then the guy looked her in the eye and shook his head. His mind was made up and he was not going to be changing it. So with one all-too-slow move he turned and made a grab for the shotgun. But as he turned his back and reached up both Marines opened fire. Instantly several five point five six millimeter rounds ripped into his upper back, poking neat holes into the blue plaid jacket he had on. The rounds were fatal, and the old man collapsed in a heap with his hands knocking over dozens of packages of product.

Immediately there was a scream from a door off to the right that read 'Employees Only'. All three of them instantly charged towards the door and stacked up next to it. Lieutenant McCoy signaled them to kick it down, and the front man did just that, and charged in to see an older woman being held with a pistol to her temple by a younger, larger man with an old Fritz style helmet with a pair of night vision goggles flipped up on it. Everything he wore was colored black except for a red sash tied around his helmet. He had a black balaclava on so the only thing they could see were his eyes.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," the Innie said with a sneer, "Wouldn't want to have the little old lady get hurt now would we?"

All the Marines growled at him, enraged at the blatantly savage individual. But as he said that he had grabbed her around the lips to emphasize his point. This was a mistake, for when that opportunity presented itself the tough old bird took it. She grabbed his left hand and held it firm and then chomped down on it. He yelped in pain and pushed her away, exposing himself to the three Marines in the little store room. They didn't miss a single shot.

A half dozen shots from each of them ripped into the patchwork of armor under the ammunition vest he wore before he could grab the DMR clipped to his vest. He crumpled backwards, falling unceremoniously onto the tile without a noise as the Marines and bullets followed him down. The old woman bolted from the store room immediately, running out to where she knew her husband had been. Her wailing at the sight of his body on the ground humbled every one of the Marines outside, even the lone ONI Captain who had seen it all unfold.

"Clear that house," McCoy silently ordered, knowing that it was more than likely empty.

One of the Marines at her side nodded and left, but the other one stood there, frozen at the sight of the old lady cradling the body of her dead husband. She too couldn't tear herself away from it and it was only the motion of someone entering that snapped her out of it. Captain Lynch had entered, a DMR in hand.

"Marine, go," she whispered, forcing the other man to leave as she followed him only to stop next to Lynch.

"You said that we didn't have to go after these bastards today?" she asked him in a barely audible whisper.

"That's right."

"Fuck that."

With that declaration she left the building, with Lynch right behind her as the Marines reported the house was clear. She took a peak at her Blue Force Tracker and saw that the red marks had been updated, six marks for vehicles had been placed within the town along several more infantry and vehicle markers near their other objectives. They couldn't tell if they were just technicals or a damned tank by these markers alone so McCoy called into their overwatch air support.

"Warlord Anvil-6," she said with the anger still evident in her voice.

"Send it Anvil-6," the same voice from the Vulture overhead called out.

"Interrogative what sort of vehicles have you gotten eyes on in our objective areas?"

"Wait one," the person said before getting back to her, "Three times technicals, one times Rocket Warthog, and two times Cougars at the entrance to town have been located so far inside of Objective X-Ray. One times technical at Objective Yankee. And one times Scorpion, four times Warthogs, and one times Cougar at Objective Zulu."

"Okay Warlord, if the vehicles at Objective Zulu begin moving down the road to engage friendlies light 'em up at your own discretion. Make sure they are well clear of the dam before opening fire."

"Roger that Anvil-6," Warlord responded with a bit of cheer in their voice, "Warlord standing by."

"Copy that," she said before turning to her Staff Sergeant, "Staff Sergeant, we need to get someone up here to look after her," she said, nodding to the woman still with ther body of her husband.

"Already done," he responded with a subtle nod.

"Very well, let's get moving. Those Innies are already waiting for us."

"Well eltee, let's not keep those bastards waiting shall we? Marines, we're rolling out!"

"Tiger, your tanks will lead convoy, roll out," McCoy called out, "Squads to follow by the order!"

The two tanks rolled forward, their big engines spewing wisps of black smoke as the clacking of their tracks overpowered the sound of most everything else. The ground rumbled so much that the Marines could feel it through their boots as they walked in two single file columns behind the tanks alongside their own Warthogs which only had their drivers and their gunners still inside. They were moving at a slow jog, up the ridge towards town, which they could now see on their mini-maps on their HUD's.

"Alright convoy halt," McCoy said on the radio, knowing that they were getting close to contact, "First squad peek over the lip and get eyes on the town. Warlord says two Cougars are waiting at the town entrance."

She got a wink on her HUD from her first squad's sergeant, who pointed to one of his fireteams to move to a sandstone sign with the name 'Albacore' embroidered on it on the left side of the road, signaling to travelers what town they were coming up to. The five Marines crept up to it, ducking behind it and poked their weapons over it and around the sides with the fireteam's Automatic Rifleman popping his bipod and aimed down at the village.

"Anvil-6, Anvil-1, have eyes on two times Cougars on both sides of the main street into town. They are active, both turrets are looking up the road at us. Also have eyes on a lot of infantry moving around town trying to fortify their positions."

"Are they exposed?"

"That's an affirm," the sergeant said calmly as McCoy tapped into his helmet camera feed.

What she saw was not unexpected, the light of the town exposed those vehicles easily. They were painted over with a stylized red wolf head on their noses right below the driver's position. They were void of the cloth multi-spectral camo that her own vehicles possessed and almost shined orange thanks in part to the early morning sun. They were just behind a wall of trailers, cars, and dumpsters moved to the front of town and just in front of what looked to be a small water tower. She saw several individuals sprinting between cover with sandbags, pieces of wood, or anything else that could been used for cover. She saw that there were at least a dozen infantry in a mix of the all-black armor and helmets of the Vengeance Brigade to the mix of civilian jackets and clothes of the townsfolk, more than likely forced into fighting the UNSC on the threat of harm to themselves and their families.

"Tiger-1, carefully move to hull down position and engage those Cougars, time now."

"Roger that Anvil-6, engaging hostiles."

The tank lurched forward and then stopped as the turret's ninety millimeter gun tracked onto one of the Cougars and then loosed a single round from over five hundred meters away. The loud concussion of the powerful weapon kicked up a low cloud of dust all around the vehicle, scattering the falling snow coming down around them. It was a simple point and shoot, and the excellent targeting system of the M808B did its job to perfection. The round sliced through the armor plates just behind the left front tire of the six-wheeled vehicle with a loud bang and a brownish gray cloud jetted away from the Cougar below. It was followed by a loud explosion as the ammunition inside cooked off, blowing open every door and hatch in the vehicle as orange flames reached out like a jet engine as yellow flashes erupted as the explosive rounds exploded inside and the missiles on the turret also exploded.

Black smoke rose quickly as the Cougar burned hotly, and was followed by a second concussive SABOT round lancing through the nose of the second Cougar. The infantry within the immediate vicinity weren't really killed or wounded by impacts of the rounds but as the second Cougar followed a similar destructive pattern to the first they were all just struggling to get their bearings. With both armored opponents down Lieutenant McCoy had ordered an advance and weapons free call to her platoon and the rebels in the town instantly ducked into the nearest cover and pointed their weapons up the road and fired at the first thing they could see. Unfortunately for them that was the two Scorpions rumbling down the concrete road.

Heavy and light machine guns now let loose from across the town at the UNSC Marine convoy that was now letting loose as one by one the Marines' Warthogs rolled over the hill and started driving along the length of the ridge towards their objective. Bullets snapped and as the gunshots echoed back with louds pops and strings of rattling from anything firing in an automatic burst. The convoy was a very large target, but the armor and glass on the UNSC vehicles brushed aside the small arms fire with little trouble. The drivers were on the left hand side of their vehicles, totally in cover, but that didn't stop them from flinching or ducking as a round snapped over their heads or slammed into the side of their Warthogs. Another advantage was that the cut out section of road had a tall lip to it with a steel barrier to prevent cars from careening down the ridge into the thick woods, so they were in solid cover already, with the Insurrectionists really only getting fleeting glimpses of their targets coming towards them.

The Marine infantry were ordered to stick to the shallow ditches on the sides of the road and suppress the village defenses. With their IFF identification software in their helmets they were seeing plenty of targets in the town. Most Innies were taking cover in the buildings and fortifications to the south, popping out to fire their weapons before ducking back again for fear of being shot. The machine guns on the tanks and Warthogs were firing in short bursts, pecking away at the randomly appearing enemy militants.

Lieutenant McCoy had allowed the convoy to pass, only ordering her vehicle forward to stay ahead of the rocket and anti-armor hogs in the rear. She saw her Marines moving forward hunched over along the lip to the right in defilade, standing to peek over the sides through the pine and spruce trees in front of them. They were still slightly out of effective range, and were wanting to conserve their ammunition so it was really up to their DMR's to take the shots until they got closer.

"Let's get out here, Corpsman pull your Hog up here and stay in cover" she ordered her Staff Sergeant and the three Corpsmen in her platoon with their medical variant of the Warthog, and then turned to the Captain Lynch, "You wouldn't mind sticking with my Hog would you?"

"Not at all," Lynch said calmly, looking out over the town with a pair of range finders.

He was remarkably calm from what she could tell, standing almost straight up in the bed of her vehicle looking out over the town, marking targets on their Blue Force Trackers for all to see. He was certainly not dead weight, just the opposite, he was actively trying to aid in their operation.

 _Definitely not your average spook_ , Lieutenant McCoy thought to herself as she jumped over the metal railing and then dove onto her belly against the dirt bank to look out over the town.

Her scan revealed very little, just a few enemy infantry popping out of windows, from behind buildings, and from anything else that would classify as cover. She did get one piece of satisfaction at seeing an Innie firing away with an M247H fifty caliber machine gun get popped in the head by what she assumed was one of the three DMR's in her platoon. The man's body crumpled on top of the weapon, sending a burst of fire skywards as it was pushed up to aim at the sky.

"Anvil-6, Tiger-1 we're about to lose our cover here," the voice of the first tank's commander piped up on the radio.

"Roger Tiger-1, We'll split into our squads for the main assault. I want Tiger-1 to skirt around the town with Anvil-1 and establish a blocking position to the west in case more Innies decide to join the battle. Tiger-2 will move down the main street with Anvil-2 clearing the western side and Anvil-3 clearing the eastern side of the street. Do your best to parallel one another in your advance," McCoy called out.

Blue winks on her HUD signaled that they understood her perfectly, and she saw the first Scorpion lurch forward off of the road over a stand of bushes on the grass median, knocking over a light post in the process. She about reprimanded the driver for unnecessary destruction of property but held her tongue. Instead she signaled her platoon sergeant to follow as she got up and mad her way down towards the rest of her platoon which was now moving forward very quickly. Several snaps from a machine gun caused both of them to flinch as they moved along the berm and made a conscious decision to stay just a little bit lower on their little sprint.

They both reached the rear end of third squad which was moving forward at a fast walk with their Warthogs covering their advance with heavy fifty caliber rounds slicing through the trees. She saw that each fireteam was cresting the berm to move in cover through the trees down the steep slope one by one to start clearing the buildings which were by now just two hundred meters away. She knew she shouldn't be with third squad in its more isolated position away from the rest of the platoon's other two squads and leapfrogged them. As she did that a sickening metallic pop caught her attention as one of the Marine grenadiers lurched back like his head had gotten hit by a sledgehammer.

"Fuck!" the man yelled as he felt the top of his helmet, patting around to feel where he'd gotten hit.

"You alright Marine?" she asked, ducking down next to him, examining him herself.

What she saw was a silver gash was present where the 5.56mm round had ricocheted off the top of his helmet. The young Marine was wide-eyed and dazed at the forceful impact.

"I'm still green eltee," he said, rolling onto his hands and knees and crawled back with the rest of his fireteam putting fire down onto a house where the shot had come from.

"Don't stick your head up so far next time," she joked as she patted him on the head from behind before moving on down the line.

Both Marines then reached the front of the convoy as second squad began its sprint across along with the Warthogs which began spreading out so they all had clear field of fire. Only a few shots were fired at them as they advanced in three rolling wedges alongside their vehicles. She saw her first squad and their vehicles being led forward along the sides of town, firing into windows and barricades, scaring the Innies into headlong retreat further into town as they closed in. She signaled Staff Sergeant Harvey to follow her forward. She planned on staying with second squad due to its central location in the battle.

She could now almost feel the heat of the dying off fires from the two Cougars still burning at the front of town. The lead Scorpion crashed through the hastily constructed barricades, crushing sandbags wooden pallets, and a pushing aside a concrete barrier in the middle of the road. With entry into town secure two of the Warthogs, an anti-armor Hog and a gun Hog, peeled away to support third squad. She could now see several bodies of enemy militants amongst the front barriers as second squad began clearing the first two buildings as the two of them reached the barricade and ducked down.

A concussive blast roared out from within the low, mostly underground and circular shaped, house to their left as a single fireteam tossed in a flashbang after kicking smashing in a window. She saw them from above as they rushed into the kicked in door built at the foot of a staircase below ground level. Shots echoed out as they were fired upon by a single hostile within but their own fire dealt with him soon enough.

"Eltee, this house here hasn't been cleared," Harvey called over to her, tapping her shoulder and then pointed at a house to their right, built into a low hill with sandbags and a table arranged in front of the door with sandbags in the windows.

"Let's clear it real quick then," she nodded and tucked her rifle to her shoulder and moved forward, aiming at one of two windows next to the door.

Both of them rushed to white face, careful not to slip on the ice-covered deck below the lip of the balcony above it. McCoy aimed her rifle through the window, seeing the lit interior of the house's living room with the couches untouched but saw a single head pop up from behind the kitchen counter in the back of the room and identified it as one of the fanatics by the red painted dome of the fritz helmet.

"At least one inside, flash it out!" she called out.

"Roger!"

Harvey kicked in the door and then ducked back behind the wall and tapped the button on a flash bang grenade before tossing it well into the room. A trio gunshots tore at the doorway from within as the grenade went off, and McCoy stood back up and aimed through the broken window, firing at the kitchen counter where she knew one hostile was located. The other NCO burst in, rifle raised and caught sight of their target in a hallway down past the counter with weapon raised and fired at him with expert precision. The four rounds caught the Innie first in the upper arm and then into his chest plate which took the rounds as best they could, but another burst from the Marine NCO caught him again, this time, right at the base of the neck and in the upper chest, severing his spinal column. He crumpled down against the wall onto his side limply, dead before hitting the ground. The lieutenant charged into the room, following Harvey down the hall in the event there were any other Innies within the building. They came to a staircase that led down and carefully made their way down into the main area of the house. There they came to a warm, garden-looking area with a few rows of vegetables growing under the warmth of sun lamps mounted in the ceiling with several doors arrayed around it.

"UNSC Marines, anyone here?!" she called out.

"Let us know now," Harvey yelled as well.

McCoy pointed to the closest door, and once ready pulled it open to reveal a small bathroom, empty of life. Moving on they opened another door, revealing a child's bedroom, with a pair of bunkbeds and toys scattered on the floor. Then they heard some talking behind a door behind them on the other side of the room. Walking carefully to the door McCoy decided to give them an opportunity to give themselves up.

"UNSC! Show me your hands, we know you're in there!"

The talking then hushed immediately, and then right before she was going to signal her Sergeant to kick it in someone called out.

"We're civilian! Don't shoot!"

"Come out of there, hands where we can see them!" Harvey ordered, and then motioned McCoy to back away from the door.

"We're coming out," the man's voice said , worry evident in his voice.

The white door opened with a squeak and then two pairs of hands reached out, followed by a man with a goatee looking back and forth to see the two Marines aiming their rifles right between his eyes. He then looked back and inside and ushered the others inside to come out.

"It's okay, their military."

He then walked out, wearing a normal looking hoodie and jeans. Behind him came a young woman holding a small child walking beside her tight to her legs with one hand in the air.

"Against the wall please sir," McCoy said calmly, relaxing her stance at seeing that it was just a normal family.

"I-I have a pistol in my belt," the man said calmly, "I'm not a rebel. I just wanted to defend my family."

"Okay thank you for tell us sir, but I'm still going to have to take it for my safety," McCoy said, moving forward to pat them all down and saw the man, raise his hoodie to show them a revolver in his belt loop.

She took it out, tossing it to Harvey and then quickly patted down all three, being very careful with the little boy staying very quiet and very close to his mother.

"Alright," she said to them, "Stay down here where it's safe for your family. Lock the door and wait for UNSC personnel to come and clear the area."

"Okay," the man responded, and moved to shepherd his family into the main bedroom. But he was stopped by McCoy before he went inside.

"We killed an Innie upstairs, better not let your child see that."

The man just nodded as his face went white at the knowledge a dead body was in his house as he shut the door and locked it. With that the Marines checked one last room, saw nothing was in it, and ran back upstairs and then outside. Her HUD was showing that the platoon had made rapid progress, already having seized most of the town's southern third with no casualties.

She walked out of the building to see that her command vehicle and the medical vehicle had pulled up to her position.

"So far so good," Captain Lynch called out to her from where he was driving her Hog, "They're falling back or surrendering faster than we're advancing."

"We've still got a long way to go."

 **Well this chapter was getting a bit long so I decided to cut it off here and pick up where it left off next chapter. Thanks for reading guys, I hope you enjoyed it, if you didn't leave a review telling me what you think I can improve on or if you have any suggestions.**

 **Next Chapter Preview: Warm-up's over, time for a real challenge, courtesy of the United Rebel Front.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Upon discussion with some of you I've made the decision to add a crewman to the Scorpions, a gunner, and make the MG gunner in the front the commander with a cupola he sits inside of while the dedicated gunner sits beside the driver. I'm also up-gunning them to a 105mm gun. This is canon as some Scorpion variants had a 105mm, so I'll be using that from now on.**

 **The Warthogs I will be giving their own makeover. I will have the cab of the gun hogs extend back to the rear, encompassing the gunner with a more enclosed turret for them. This makes sense as I can now have the users store stuff in this area, and even evac casualties.**

 **I'm sort of making these things up as I get feedback, so if you have any issues or suggestions with these adjustments let me know and I'll get back to you on it.**

Chapter 3

Location: Planet Dyonisis, Delta Xi System

Date: January 22, 2524

Time: 0745 Zulu

The town was taken with relatively little effort. This was surprising considering the type of fighters that the UNSC Marines had been expecting to encounter. But upon further inspection there hadn't been all that many to start with at all. According to the townspeople who had made up the vast majority of the twenty or so defenders the real Insurrectionist fanatics had only had a small group of a dozen thugs to keep them in line while the rest of them hadn't yet attempted to counter-attack from their hideout near the dam.

Most importantly no Marines had been killed or wounded in the assault. A few had been hit, but their armor had dealt quite easily with the bullets and shotgun pellets of the mostly civilian grade weapons. Captain Lynch had interrogated a few and was about to report to Lieutenant McCoy on his findings and conclusions. She herself was with two of her squads at the road into town from the dam that they knew they'd have to traverse in order to secure that ONI objective, which was more important it seemed than wiping out the Vengeance Brigade.

"Lieutenant McCoy," their ONI captain called on the radio, "Looks like our agents might still be alive. The Vengeance Brigade has them held as hostages. Doesn't look like they know who they are, to them they're just human shields from airstrikes."

"Roger that Lynch," she responded as she looked through her binoculars up the road that they'd have to go, "Warlord, Anvil-6."

"Send it Anvil-6," the gunship's pilot responded.

"Warlord be advised, ONI reports that it has two agents on the ground at Objective Zulu. They are currently hostages."

"Roger that Anvil-6," their air support responded calmly as McCoy turned her attention fully towards their next objectives.

"Warlord, any change in hostiles at Objective Yankee?" she asked.

"That's a negative Anvil-6, no change in hostile strength. But hostiles are now on a much more alert posture. They've got their technical hidden in the barn, and five foot mobiles are taking cover in and around the main house."

"Copy Warlord," McCoy said, relieved that their first objective would be a piece of cake, "And what sort of activity do you see at Objective Zulu?"

"Wait one…" the pilot responded, obviously panning his cameras over to take a more detailed look, "Anvil-6 those Innies have positioned a tank outside the main wall, looks like it's in an ambush position with four technicals and thirty infantry in position all along the road."

"Oh those dumb fuckers," McCoy chuckled, knowing that those Innies were in perfect position for their Vulture to wipe them out without the risk of collateral damage to the dam.

"Warlord also has eyes on twenty foot mobiles and six technicals on the dam itself, looks like they're arrayed towards town. Break, break, break, one Cougar, repeat one Cougar making its way to the center of the dam, they're aiming into town."

 _Oh come on!_ Lieutenant McCoy growled to herself. And then she heard the firing of the autocannons of the Infantry Fighting Vehicle sounding out. She could see the tracers lancing out over the trees in front of her and then impact somewhere in the bay. She knew very well how dangerous this vehicle could become, so she knew to make some effort to take it out.

"Warlord can you take it out with guns?" McCoy questioned, hoping the answer was a yes.

"That's an affirm Anvil-6. Gun run coming on your command."

"Fire at will Warlord, take 'em down. Once the dam is clear you have full weapons free on any hostiles outside the compound at Objective Zulu."

"Roger Anvil-6, CAS inbound."

As the Vulture responded another volley of fire from the dam came flying at the Marines in town, some of it was from the forty-millimeter autocannons on the Cougar yet others were from the fifty calibers on the technicals. The snaps of the rounds passing overhead was enough to cause the Marines to duck tighter to their pieces of cover as the larger cannon rounds impacted into a warehouse, exploding on the wooden walls and shattered much of the building. Then the whistling sound of a mortar shell came screaming to their ears.

"Incoming!" several Marines yelled out at the familiar noise.

"Spread out! Spread out!" their squad leaders all began yelling as the first round impacted into a stand of trees outside a house to McCoy's immediate right.

But now the UNSC Vulture opened fire with the two twin-barreled cannons on its chin. Short bursts from each turret sent streams of red tracers arching into the Insurrectionists on the dam. The rounds did their job, as there was a series of short popping explosions and thick black smoke rose from the dam as the Innies realized they were getting ripped to shreds. The mortar strike was temporarily halted as the Vulture set about wiping out what Insurrectionists it could lay its sights upon.

She'd seen these gunships in action once before, and had to secure the area of their strikes. Not even fully armored Elephants were able to really hold up to their firepower, and had seen entire tanks with their turrets in pieces on the side of the road thanks to an airstrike from a Vulture. So she could imagine what those lightly armored technicals on the dam's road would end up looking like. The black smoke that was rising into the air was a good sign of what she liked to see as a missile now lanced into the trees out of sight as the Vulture now ripped into the road-side ambush the Vengeance Brigade had set out for them. A flash from the very tip an orange geyser of flame from the Scorpion in the trees confirmed that the greatest danger to the UNSC Marines had been dealt with as rockets and more gun runs began pounding into the enemy positions. Dust and yellow flashes of their impacts signaled the continued terror their air support was inflicting upon the Innies.

"Oh fuck yeah," her platoon sergeant laughed, "Warlord's fucking their shit up!"

"Let's hope they leave some for us," a Marine chuckled next to the Warthog.

"Anvil-6, Warlord, hostiles destroyed on the dam and on the road. The route is clear."

"Roger Warlord, Anvil will move on Objective Yankee once friendly forces arrive to secure the town," McCoy responded, "How long can you remain on station?"

"Warlord has thirty minutes on station. ETA on friendly reinforcements?"

"Friendly reinforcements are oscar mike, ETA twenty minutes," McCoy called out, debating the wisdom of pushing forward and leaving a single squad to hold the town and watch the prisoners that they had taken.

"Lieutenant I'd recommend we proceed on mission," Captain Lynch called out, "The longer we wait, the higher the chance that the enemy will be able to fortify and the greater the chance our people will be executed."

"I agree," she responded, "Third squad, you're on rear guard, hold the village until friendly forces arrive and join the rest of the platoon. First and second squads will move on Objective Zulu. I want one fireteam from second squad to accompany Captain Lynch to Objective Yankee."

"Yes ma'am," her second squad sergeant responded, "Captain I'll give you a Hog and Fireteam Bravo."

"Okay, Tiger, you're lead while one and two follow, keep your spacing, watch for roadside IED's."

"Roger Anvil-6," one of the tank commanders responded, calling over to his counterpart in the second Scorpion behind him.

Both Scorpions rolled forward, with the infantry and Warthogs right behind them. Each vehicle had an almost orange hue to it now that the sun was rising into the sky. The snow had stopped falling, and the clouds were beginning to break up, leaving only the bitter cold and some gusty wind. The Marine convoy was kept to a quick walk, with the Scorpion tank commanders on their guns, safely tucked behind the enclosed boxy turrets of titanium and ballistic glass.

They were quickly enclosed within the tight woods on all sides, keenly aware that the enemy was probably waiting for them. The road swerved and climbed, hugging the slope where it was cut into the valley walls. The power lines were off to their left, with ice crystalized on the lines and the arms of the metal pylons. Smoke and fire from the destroyed vehicles was now clearly visible off to the right through the trees as they came closer to their area. Lieutenant McCoy heard the sound of a single Warthog zip off to the right as they passed a dirt side-road to the ONI listening station further away. She took a peak and saw that the Warthog had two Marines sitting on the tailgate on the back of the Hog and she assumed Lynch was sitting within the passenger seat.

Her command vehicle was right in the middle of the convoy of Warthogs. With three of the gun hogs up front behind the Scorpions and both of the anti-armor rocket hogs behind her command hog with their corpsmen still in their medical hog, so far unused. So she herself was safe, although in the heat of battle you are never safe. This was something all Marines knew all too well. And as they passed the burning wreckage of the Innies' attempted ambush to their left they knew things were about to get really unsafe.

"Contact front!" she heard someone yell immediately before a roar of weapons fire erupted in front of them.

Each of the Marines on foot ducked to the right or hit the dirt, and opened fire. McCoy could see that there was a heavy machine gun firing on their lead tank, the red tracers ricocheting off the armor plating on the main battle tank. There were also several innies up on the buildings and in the compound firing at them with assault rifles. Their fire was wildly ineffective, and the tanks ground forward, staggering themselves so both vehicles could see and shoot at the compound.

"Move forward Tiger, provide suppressing fire," McCoy ordered, and then turned to her Marine infantry, "Move forward, first squad right, second squad left!"

The innies didn't have much of a chance. There was just so much firepower coming down on top of them they couldn't really fight back. The Marines had come with the big stick in the form of the twin tanks grinding forward with Marines darting left and right with their armored Warthogs providing cover and suppressing fire that literally tore down sections of the walls where loop holes had been cut out for the Innies to shoot from in their defense. Then things got even tougher for the rebels as the smoke canisters on the lead Scorpion let out an almighty bang, letting loose twelve of the highly effective white smoke canisters. A thick veil of the pungent smelling gas soon cloaked the area, only broken up by the red tracers going back and forth which illuminated the shapes of the trees, the vehicles, and the Marines advancing forward.

By now the Marines were barely twenty meters away from the barbed wire barrier in front of the brick wall of the compound. The security booth in the front gate had been utterly eviscerated thanks to the fifty caliber fire from each of the vehicles and now McCoy knew she'd have to call for them fully dismount to finish their assault.

"All Hogs, hard dismount, let's clear 'em out," she ordered loudly, popping the door of her command vehicle and scrambled out alongside her first sergeant.

She ran forward, hunched over to avoid fire and got right in behind the leading tank and peaked her rifle out to the right-hand side of the rear of the Scorpion. She saw first squad off to her right, stacking up along the razor wire as they waited for the tanks to roll on through. Of course she only saw them through the tags on her Blue Force Tracker, and her thermals weren't working all that well thanks to the masking smoke.

"Tiger halt here," she said in her radio, "All squads get some frags into the compound."

Blue winks acknowledged her orders as the first waves of fragmentation grenades went right over the walls. McCoy didn't hear them hit the ground, but she did hear them go off with the frequency of firecrackers. The Marines didn't hear any of the innies yell out as their weapons were dropped into their midst, perhaps they'd killed all of those who'd been shooting at them.

"Alright, all units forward!" she ordered, and as soon she said that her two escorting tanks lurched forward, plowing out of the smoke cloud and into the light of day once more.

Their co-axial machine guns sprayed away at several targets that popped out of cover or were hiding in the windows of the building right across the parking lot that connected to the garage to the Marines' right. They were so absorbed with the sight of these tanks that the appearance of the Marine infantry sprinting across the open ground to both sides of the compound surprised them. Lieutenant McCoy had chosen to go towards the left-hand side of the compound, where the two power distribution buildings were located.

She found herself at the hesco barriers within the parking lot at the base of the all-metal guard tower. Her platoon sergeant was right next to her, aiming up at the tower where he seemed to think someone was still alive.

"Eltee, we've got at least one of those fuckers up there," he growled, his experience telling him that there were more than likely hostiles just ducking in cover up there.

"Let's clear it out," she nodded, and led the way around the barriers to the entrance in the back as she saw one of second squad's fireteams clearing out the first of the two buildings.

She looked up towards the back of the tower and immediately saw her sergeant was dead-on in his statement. An innie in all-black with a red balaclava with a SAW was staring with his weapons aimed right towards her and fired. The snap of the bullets in so close caused her ears to start ringing. But she never remembered ducking back into cover. Instead her sergeant had yanked back on the hood poking out of her collar and threw her against the hesco barrier.

"Yeah," she said loudly as the firing continued, "One's up there alright."

"Not for long," her sergeant responded with a grin, holding a frag in his left hand.

He tapped the button, and waited for a count of two seconds before lobbing it up into the tower. The grenade exploded before it hit the ground. And with that McCoy knew he'd cleared that tower completely. So she patted him on the shoulder as a signal of a job well-done and made her way to the second building that had just been cleared.

"Friendlies coming in!" she called out as both of them entered and saw second squad's leader aiming his rifle down a spiral stairwell into the lower sections.

"Eltee," Sergeant Zhou responded with a quick salute without changing his posture, "At least four of them took off down the stairs, we got two in that first building and three more on the roof."

"Their leader and the hostages probably down this way, let's get moving and find that bitch and those ONI pukes," she called out.

"Roger that."

The now focused two fireteams of second squad now began descending the staircase, careful of the ambush they knew was probably waiting on them. The stairwell was an all-concrete setup, with plenty of concealment from the innies waiting in the floor below them. The lead Marines got to within sight of the ground floor below them and that's when everything went wrong.

A single heavy machine gun opened up on them from a fortified barrier in the main room it was situated within along with several rifles. A single ricochet from a fifty caliber round slammed right into the side of the Marine in front of McCoy, sending a puff of blood onto the wall to their right. The wounded man collapsed backwards, grasping at the wound gasping and yelling in absolute shock.

"Oh Jes-fuck! Fuck!" were the only words he could get out as the other Marines scrambled back out of the way as the leading Marines scrambled backwards as a grenade bounced against the wall next to them.

"Grenade!" the first of them yelled as he grasped the object and tossed it back into the room half a second before it exploded in the doorway, sending shrapnel back at him, impacting armor and several unprotected spots on his right forearm.

The Marines scrambled to get back as the second man tossed his grenade into the room as he backed away before he was hit by a fragment of a five-five six round impacting his calf. The Insurrectionists had set up this ambush perfectly, although their timing could have been better and the grenade they'd thrown could have been thrown a bit better.

"Corpsman!" McCoy yelled into her radio, signaling for one of their Corpsmen to get to her position now.

At that moment the grenade the Marine had thrown exploded, giving them an opportunity to back out of that stairwell and consolidate their wounded. McCoy managed to drag the Marine who'd been hit in the side up the stairwell along with the help of another member of second squad. The Corpsman was waiting at the top of stairwell and immediately got to work as the other two wounded Marines scrambled up the stairs and collapsed against the wall as the others aimed their rifles down the stairs in case the innies came up after them.

"Well we're not going that way," McCoy said, kicking herself for not knowing better than going down into that kill-zone.

"There's more than one way to get down there," one of the Marines suggested, "I saw a stairwell going down the retaining wall outside. We might get in behind them."

"Alright," she nodded, "Can you two hold here?"

She was asking the two slightly wounded Marines to hold the stairwell, confident that they could. Their response was classically Marine. Both smiled and flipped their aqua green displays over their right eyes and stood up and saluted.

"Hell yeah ma'am," the one with the leg injury responded, grasping his rifle tightly.

"Let's move," she ordered, and then remembered that she really only had less than two-thirds of her platoon engaged here. She looked at third squad's position, and saw that their reinforcements were just approaching the gas station where they'd left their transport hogs. That was a relief to her, and she also saw that Captain Lynch's little section derived one of second squad's fireteams had seemingly achieved its objective.

"Captain Lynch, what's your status?" she called out.

"Objective secured, preparing demolition," the man replied promptly.

"ETA?"

"Two minutes," came the reply.

It was honestly better than she'd expected, so she'd have the balance of her platoon here within at least ten minutes. So she returned to the task at hand and moved to her wounded man and the Corpsman tending to him.

"How is he?"

"It's bad eltee," the Corpsman replied, as he worked on getting the biofoam into the man's abdominal cavity.

"He doesn't know shit ma'am," the wounded Marine chuckled, his eyes a glazed over mask thanks to the morphine coursing through his system, "I'll be with ya in a minute."

"We'll be waiting on ya Marine," she said, passing his assault rifle with attached grenade launcher to his right hand, which grasped it tightly.

She left the room and bounded over to the steel stairs and went straight down them to behind the five remaining Marines who were stacked up at a metal door that was tucked into a corner next to the railing that prevented workers from falling into the torrent of the water powering the generators. It had a sign on it that said 'Pull' so kicking the damned thing in was not an option. But the squad had a solution. They'd placed a breaching charge right in the middle of the door and were preparing to detonate.

"Fire in the, fire in the hole, fire in the hole!" the squad leader called out, triggering the explosives as she got to the end of the line of Marines.

On instinct both she and her platoon sergeant ducked against the wall, shielding their faces from the small but powerful explosive. And they needed to, as the explosion sent the door flying into the room, creating a devastating concussion that the innies inside, arrayed towards the stairwell, were quickly dazed by. The Marines then tossed in a pair of flash bang grenades, remembering they had hostages somewhere in the facility.

The two bangs effectively disabled the enemy within, and the Marines now streamed into the room. Under normal circumstances they gave the innies the chance to surrender. But not here, not after what had happened to three of their own. They stormed into the room, weapons raised, and fired with complete impunity into the eight Insurrectionists that they saw. McCoy walked in time to see the final black-clothed rebel get a three round burst in the back as he crawled towards a door to the left.

"Clear!" several of the Marines called out, kicking at the lifeless bodies, noting with disdain that several were wearing standard UNSC gear, but painted over in black with some red stripes and symbols of their unit and the larger movement's unmistakable closed fist.

"There can't be that many more," McCoy noted to herself, "Clear the rest of the facility, watch for booby traps and stragglers."

"Yes ma'am," Sergeant Zhou responded, moving to the door that one of the Marines had opened and he and two others began moving into the hallway it branched into.

"There's another stairwell here," one of the other Marines said as the squad leader yanked him away from it.

"Let's not tempt fate with that trick again," McCoy grimly said, "Let's find another way down and then a way across."

She led the way out of the building and looked down and across to see movement in one of the windows in the power generator station where water was pouring from. She recognized the face of the woman immediately, even without the HUD picking her out and highlighting her as an HVT.

"There!" she yelled, noting two other hostiles flanking her in the window and pulled her rifle to her shoulder and opened fire as the other three Marines behind her came out onto the concrete deck behind her.

Her shots shattered the glass, causing all of the innies inside to duck down and against the wall and fired back. But the lone PFC with them let loose with a long volley from his SAW that put the innies on notice. There was a walkway across the raging river just to their left that would give them a clear shot to pursue their foes in their little power station. Seeing this off to her right McCoy knew she had to go after that Insurrectionist leader, the one called "The Amazon."

"Cover us private!" McCoy ordered, moving to the right, leading the charge towards the opposite bank.

"Roger eltee!" he responded, laying down underneath the metal railings and continued firing with his weapon propped up its bipod.

The clanging and shaking of the rusty walkway gave McCoy and the other Marines considerable cause to slow down, lest the whole thing collapse underneath them. But a few shots coming from in front of them from within the building got them back into a sprint. Out here in the open they couldn't stop and fire, training from day one told them never stop and fire back if you're in the open. You have to keep moving. Someone in cover will always get the better of someone in the open in a shootout. But this didn't stop the Marines from shooting back while running.

McCoy was the first to reach the concrete deck and saw to her left the red beret of none other than Rosa de Villenueva in a black set of fatigues with military grade armor painted red. Then she saw the pistol the woman had pointed at McCoy and hesitated when she saw the flash. There was no mistaking the impact of the forty-five hitting her right in the chest plate, the strongest piece of armor she had. But its transfer of energy into her body was so immense that she was spun around and stumbled as her legs gave out beneath her and the Lieutenant crumpled to her hands and knees. McCoy gasped for air, fear now taking hold as she rolled onto her back desperately feeling her chest plate, trying to feel for the tell-tale signs of blood from the wound her instincts were sure was there.

The two Marines that had been behind her knew she'd been hit, and had stopped to provide cover fire, alerting the Corpsmen that their CO was hit. As they did that the innies retreated, seeing an opportunity to escape while the Marines predictably rallied around their presumed-to-be-wounded comrade. With this reprieve both of them grabbed a firm hold of McCoy before she could get a word out and dragged her over against a row of air conditioners a few meters away from the door.

"Eltee! You okay?"

"I'm alright, I think," she managed to gasp out.

"Damn," she heard the second squad's sergeant chuckle, "You're tougher than you look."

"That fucking bitch just shot me!" McCoy yelled, plucking the remnants of the forty-five slug from the dent in her armor before discarding it with disdain.

"Well let's get her then," she heard her platoon sergeant chuckle as he rushed towards the door with her and Zhou behind him, aiming into the windows.

"Clear," Zhou whispered before turning to his SAW gunner still up behind them, "Gager, get down here."

McCoy didn't want to wait, she moved to the door and pulled it open, sweeping the walls below the windows before moving into the large room. There was a single large turbine here that was situated right in the center of the room with a catwalk going around it to the floor above where the water pipes fed its rotating movements. Several control consoles were on as the old device functioned as if nothing was out of the ordinary. But a door off to the left was open, leading to a branching hall where the three innies they had seen ran off towards.

"On me," McCoy commanded, gritting her teeth in anticipation of what they were going to find waiting past that door.

She carefully went to the wall, and peeked around, seeing nothing but a curving hall that went upwards at a slight slope. Several lights were flickering on the ceiling as they fought for life but nothing dangerous was waiting for them. The two Marines went on, careful with each step so as not to make too much noise. Their rifles were aimed right down the hallway, ready to pop anyone that came out.

They got to the bend in the hall, and as they got there they saw a door open up and a man with an old black helmet and all-black set of fatigues aimed out at them. But his fire from his assault rifle missed, while theirs did not. Both the Lieutenant and the First Sergeant landed three or four good shots that caused the terrorist to crumple into the hallway, his blood running down the smooth concrete slope like a river. The gunshots were still echoes in the long concrete tube as they aimed back at several other doors that were shut in this part of the corridor.

Both of them rushed to the open door, hearing something inside. McCoy remembered that there had been ONI personnel here that had been taken hostage and this individual may have been guarding them.

"UNSC, speak to me now!" the Marine officer called out with her NCO aiming forward, in case the innies had any more surprises waiting for them.

There was a grunting noise inside as someone was trying to get their attention. As she was about to enter the room Sergeant Zhou and his man ran up behind them, rushing to the sound of the guns. She nodded to them and pointed to her ear and then into the room with a hand around her neck to signal that the hostages were potentially inside. With the acknowledgment from the others she went in with rifle at the ready. What she found was probably a small storage room with a few crates and boxes with a few shelves against the walls. A pair of metal folding chairs was in the center of the room, but only one was occupied.

In it was a single man, his face bloodied and one eye swollen shut wearing civilian clothes with his hands tied behind his back and his ankles cuffed to the legs of the chair. He sighed heavily at the entrance of the three Marines. But he couldn't say anything thanks to a black rag tied between his teeth. But one of the Marines rectified that quickly and he immediately explained why the other chair was empty.

"Three of them, they came and took Anita as a hostage. They've got a Falcon hidden around here somewhere. One of them is Villenueva," he explained as Sergeant Zhou cut the ziptied behind his back.

"They know we won't shoot down an aircraft with a hostage aboard," McCoy stated plainly, "We've got to move now! Zhou, you and your man stay with him until Lynch gets here. Lynch, McCoy, come in."

"I know Lieutenant, I know, I'm coming over the dam now with your fireteam. I've got eyes on that Falcon now. Looks like a couple innies are prepping for takeoff," the ONI Captain said hurriedly.

"We're heading up there now, can you get to that garage before us?" McCoy said as she ran full tilt out of the room and up the corridor with her platoon sergeant right on her tail.

"I don't know, we'll have to dismount to get down there, the road's blocked by a destroyed technical."

Caution was thrown to the wind by now as the two Marines stormed forward, weapons raised but if someone jumped out at them they weren't likely to get off a very good first shot. So McCoy grabbed a flash bang grenade from off her vest and pulled the pin, ready to throw it at a moment's notice. They could hear the yelling up ahead by now and saw an open door with a single innie kneeling down behind the door, his attention focused back towards the clearly visible Falcon helicopter instead of the hallway. So McCoy took her flash bang and released the trigger, and tossed it, as best she could. The device bounced right in front of the door, getting the terrorist's attention and his eyes and rifle immediately went to track the object that had bounced right by him and rolled up against a crate behind the Falcon. There it detonated just as both Marines averted their eyes.

The device did the trick, as everyone inside was stunned and several screams of confusion sounded out. They immediately fired, hitting the innie in the door who'd stood up with his hands to his eyes as he tried recovering. Seven or eight rounds impacted him right in the chest and he fell forward against the doorway, rolling away into the hall, half in the garage and half in the hall. The two Marines stormed inside, her sergeant picking off two more innies who'd tried grabbing for weapons resting on a table against the wall. She herself picked off another insurrectionist with a well-placed headshot that killed him instantly. She then took notice of a brunette woman in civilian clothes with her hands tied behind her back and a similar gag to the one her ONI partner had on. She was lying on the ground, right next to the man that McCoy had just killed.

Then she saw their primary target, Rosa de Villenueva, and she hadn't been as stunned as the other innies. McCoy didn't have time to explain it but the woman must have had her back turned or had covered her ears. Because she suddenly appeared, right behind her platoon sergeant with a revolver drawn. From point-blank range she fired, hitting the armored plates on his back, sending the man stumbling forward as the first three rounds hit to no lethal effect. But the last two hit lower, penetrating the Kevlar there.

McCoy didn't say a word, she just aimed and pulled the trigger, but of all the times for her to run her clip dry now was the worst of times. So she reached down to her holster and drew her Magnum and aimed up but the momentary hesitation of drawing the weapon gave Villenueva enough time to duck back into a room and McCoy gave chase immediately. She ignored the noise her boots made as she came to the door and was shocked to see a silver machete come swinging down on top of her.

The Marine spun away, but not quick enough as her Magnum was knocked from her hands and the blade glanced off of her Kevlar gloves. But it was only the same pain as getting hit in the hands with a textbook and the blade didn't cut through. However there wasn't time to even check, as she had to jump backwards as the machete came slicing for her neck with the next move as Villenueva pressed her attack yelling out with each attempt. The first blow missed and then the woman tried again with another backhanded slice that McCoy ducked to avoid and grabbed the other woman in a headlock and put her right leg behind her and used her full body-weight in a classic Marine take-down. But Villenueva was quick on the draw, and before McCoy was solidly on top she was on her knees and was trying to get up and throw off the Marine officer.

McCoy was on the woman's back, and grabbed a hold of her machete-wielding arm and wrestled to keep it from being used. But Villenueva finally got her feet under her and pushed off, sending both women backwards uncontrollably. Behind them had been an office with a glass window going floor to ceiling with the shades down. This window was shattered instantly and the thin plastic shades crumpled and tangled around them as both of them fell and tangled amongst it, oblivious to everything but their fight for survival. McCoy was the first one to her feet, and awkwardly grabbed the first thing she could get her hands on, a wooden shelf against the wall, and yanked it down on top of her foe. She was just getting to her knees and struggled to get to her feet as not only the shelf fell upon her but the binders and boxes on it as well.

The Marine now drew her own combat knife as Villenvueva rolled away, untangling herself from the blinds of the destroyed window and assumed a fighting stance facing the Marine Lieutenant. Her beret was missing, and her long black hair was now free of the bun it had been tied in. And like the reports had said she was aggressive and attacked with an overhand slash that McCoy sidestepped. With that move she was able to catch the arm with her left arm, pin it, and with her knife held reverse blade-out she sliced open her opponent's tricep by slicing up cutting deeply before stabbing down, right into her shoulder with a quick in-and-out jab.

This only served to infuriate Villenueva, who spun around, slugging her right in the nose several times, and then brought her right left knee into McCoy's side, desperation taking hold. But McCoy took them in stride, and spun around behind Villenueva, still holding her right arm pinned and bleeding and used her right arm to loop around the woman's neck. She then kicked her right knee and pushed down, easily controlling her opponent and forced her down to the ground and maneuvered to put her knee into Villenueva's back and hold the woman down. Despite being effectively pinned Villenueva wasn't going to stop struggling and McCoy was glad to see what happened next.

"Need some help Lieutenant?"

A single boot crunched down on top of the machete, and a hand wrenched it free of Villenueva's grip and tossed it to the side. The Marine looked up to see the god visor of Captain Lynch's helmet as he slipped a ziptie cuff around the woman's wrist and grabbed a tight hold as he did the same to the other arm after he'd placed is own much heavier body weight on top of the smaller terrorist leader. In one quick move he'd secured Villenvueva who began cursing at them in Spanish despite her hopeless situation.

"About time," McCoy breathed, catching her breath as she remembered her platoon sergeant had been shot and was lying outside, "What the hell took you so long?"

"And miss the chickfight?" the man said with a chuckle.

McCoy just let her jaw drop.

"Fuckin' men…"

She rushed out into the garage to see two Marines busy trying apply first aid. The Marine Staff Sergeant's helmet was off and he was clenching his teeth and grumbling lowly as the other two worked on him.

"Corpsman's on the way ma'am," one of the two said calmly, "Looks like the Kevlar stopped most of it. He should be fine."

"How many times have you gotten shot private?" the old NCO growled.

"Not once Staff Sergeant," the man responded.

"Well until you do don't go saying I'll be fine. This shit hurts."

Several chuckles sounded out as she looked over to see her other two Marines helping the other ONI operative to her feet after cutting the binders on her wrists. So McCoy went over to them to check on this situation as well.

"You alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," the woman grumbled, "little sore but it could be worse. Nice job lieutenant, I'll be putting you and your man over there up for a commendation."

"With respect ma'am," Harvey called out from his spot, "I'm an NCO. Call me by my rank."

"We know, we know, you're not an officer. You work for a living," McCoy said with a genuine smile on her face as she now checked on the rest of her platoon.

"Medivac en route eltee," Zhou called out to her over the radio.

"Very well."

First squad wasn't showing anyone killed, but there were three men wounded, one fairly badly judging by the red blinking on the torso section on the silhouette she pulled up on her HUD. Two others were yellow, with their wounds in both legs. How that had happened she'd find out later, but all that mattered was that there weren't any more gunshots firing right now. And that meant that they'd done it. With that McCoy could call out her favorite radio signal.

"All stations this net, index, all objectives secure, mission complete, mission complete, mission complete."

 **Okay, that was a lot of fun so I hope you guys liked it. Whether or not you liked it let me know what you guys think, so I can improve. This story is the most fun to write out of all the one's I write just because of how fast paced and action packed it is. Needless to say I can't wait to hear what you guys think.**

 **Next Chapter Preview: The infantry's had its fun, time for a look at the inside of a tank.**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Location: Planet Dyonisis, Delta Xi System

Date: January 24, 2524

Time: 0945 Zulu

The operation to take this island had been going on for three days and things had definitely slowed down. Much of the island was under UNSC control and the remnants of the Insurrectionists knew it and were getting desperate. The island's last Innie stronghold, the largest settlement named New Messina, was now home to a force estimated to be at least twelve hundred strong. Most of them being from the local Colonial Guard battalion that had avoided engaging the Marine forces on the ground, until now.

The full force of the Marine regiment was now being focused on this coastal city of more than ten thousand. This included the fifty-eight M808B "Scorpions" of the 12th Marine Tank Battalion. These armored behemoths had been fully landed two days ago, and were finally operating in full force rather than piecemeal as they had earlier in the operation.

In reality each platoon of five tanks was split off to an individual Marine infantry company to support their drive to the city. At the moment 2nd Platoon of Company C was operating in the southern front of the advance toward New Messina with Company F of the 4th Marine Battalion. The terrain facing them was predominantly hilly and sparsely wooded with rocky outcroppings and a few villages along the road into town. Around them was the full force of the Marine company with thirty-eight Warthogs of all kinds arrayed around them in platoon groupings. To the left and right of this central company were two other infantry companies with the rest of Company C in support. To their left was the Marine battalion's weapons company with fifteen M841 Cougar AFV's on line ready to advance with the five Scorpions of first platoon to provide covering fire from the high ground on the left flank of the advance. Behind them was another infantry company with another mass of Warthogs and a reserve EOD team. Altogether, seventeen Scorpions, nineteen Cougars, and a hundred-fourteen Warthogs were ready to advance. Behind them was the Fourth Battalion CP in the form of an Elephant with the armored company's two HQ Scorpions in place ready to support their advance if they ran into trouble.

The five tanks of second platoon were forward, on the edge of the small village the Marines had halted at to allow a resupply to get to them along with an EOD team with a pair of M841 Cougars outfitted with the necessary gear to clear landmines and IED's. The tanks were well-hidden within a layer of forest, with the tall evergreens giving them cover from the snow and the eyes of the enemy force.

They were overlooking a pair of small towns/villages closely spaced with several fields and meadows around them, cleared for the visibly grazing cattle and sheep that were milling around in the deep snow that had covered the ground. A series of low rocky mountains off to the left were well covered in boreal forest and was crawling with Innie fighters. Occasionally a loud boom signaled an airstrike in the thick woods and was then followed by a plume of ugly gray smoke, mushrooming into the sky only to be blown away in the high winds now plaguing the island as snow came down in thick blankets that made it increasingly difficult to see more than a five hundred meters.

In fact the tanks could only see, with the naked eye at least, to the first group of buildings of the town Troina with the town of Catania invisible behind a layer of white falling snow another kilometer down the road. The terrain here was rugged as is, but now, with a blanket of snow covering much of the area, things were going to be quite difficult.

This little length of settlement rested in one of the few valleys in the area that was large enough to sustain the livestock that grazed in the meadows. Much of the town's farms were actually below ground, fed and warmed by geothermal energy which kept crops growing all year round. These large, but shallow, subterranean caverns allowed the predominantly Italian population to grow everything that their culture was known for in abundance and be self-sufficient for the most part. However these underground farms had posed a problem. They had been connected by the Innies to form a vast and unobservable line of communication, movement, supply, and housing for their defenders and their weapons and ammunition. The Marines would have to clear these out one by one.

In this platoon was Fullback, a Scorpion commanded by Staff Sergeant Seth Friis who'd named his tank after the position he played on the battalion football team. He was the tank commander, and was last in line for command of the platoon. In his tank he had his driver, Corporal Castore Buccho, an Italian newbie with a bad habit of using their tank as a giant hammer in past operations. His gunner was Sergeant Archer Smithies, an Australian who many of the platoon called a Cliffjumper after their tank had been hit on their first mission together and he'd jumped from his seat and landed on a deep and steep ditch and tumbled into a brace of thorn bushes. This crew of three had been on three different operations together on three different planets. And Fullback itself, or himself, as Friis said, had nearly had its turret blown off on two of those operations.

Staff Sergeant Friis wasn't with his crew at the moment, instead he was behind King, his platoon leader's tank. Next to him were the other tank commanders, who were all kneeling around a blue hologram of their area of operations. On it they saw the numerous markers of friendly units and the red markers of enemy forces that were believed to be in the area. They also had a full view of the underground complex that was on record thanks to careful building inspections that allowed the UNSC to know precisely where the Innies were likely to be hiding. This however wasn't their problem, the presence of Insurrectionist armor on the other hand was the entire reason they were here.

"Marines," their platoon leader, First Lieutenant Kyle Angelo, said calmly, "The regiment's pushing forward on New Messina but we've got to get through this valley and capture these towns and the high ground along the coast road."

"We can tell eltee," the platoon sergeant chuckled, "That's why we're here isn't it?"

"Nothing gets past you First Sergeant. But the Innies have been expecting us and are prepared. Force Recon has already probed this area and took a beating from MG's, mortars, rockets, and armored vehicles," the man said calmly, pointing at the positions marked on the edge of the first town.

"Armored vehicles huh?" Friis asked, "Did they know what kind?"

"They were saying that they got hit with direct fire from one-oh-fives from two angles. So there's at least two hostile Scorpions out there, probably hidden in an underground garage or barn. They've also got AT and a ton of IED's and mines scattered along the road and in the fields and buildings."

"That'll be tough on our infantry," one of the other tank commanders noted.

"Thankfully our EOD guys have pinpointed where most of the ones along the road and fields are located and are ready to pick them off with guns and det-cords. We're to cover their vehicles and knock out the tanks that the Innies have got waiting there and destroy any strongpoints our infantry comes across."

"So a basic support mission sir?"

"Pretty much, we've all done this before so let's get it done. Keep your front glacis facing forward, I don't want to lose any tanks. We've also been dropping leaflets on the town, warning civilians to evacuate. Thankfully most of them have the common sense to leave or take shelter."

"So only a few civilians," Friis grumbled, "How do we know which buildings still have people?"

"The leaflets advised the civilians to surrender immediately upon our infantry entering their homes. From there a troop hog will take them out of the combat area. We also need to cover those evac hogs."

"Who's leading?" one of the other tank commanders asked.

"We're going to have three tanks on the road, two leading, one in the rear and the other two on the flanks. I'll be second in line in the middle. Bloody Mary," he continued, using the names of the tanks, "Want lead?"

"Sure," came the enthusiastic reply from Staff Sergeant Petra Edwena, commander of an all-female tank crew.

"Okay, Raider, you're third in the center," he then said, signaled Staff Sergeant Christopherson, "Longhorn, you're on the left and Fullback you're on the right."

"Copy that," Friis responded with a nod, just as a familiar noise started screaming in.

"Incoming!"

Every one of the tankers dove to the ground and slipped their helmets on and hoped that the mortar rounds coming in at them would miss. The whistling sound was shortly followed by a low crack as a spout of snow and smoke went out from behind them right in front of the leading Warthog of the column of UNSC vehicles. It was shortly followed by another that landed right in front of the tank they were taking shelter behind. Then a third immediately pummeled an empty wooden barn that hid the tank immediately to their left. Pieces of wood and hay rained down upon the multispectral camo-covered tank which had its two other crewmen shut up tight in the safety of their vehicle. And then to the far right where Friis's tank was parked, one last round struck in between Fullback and Raider.

"Mount up while they're reloading," Lieutenant Angelo called out after there was a pause between the mortar rounds.

Without much word being spoken beyond that the five individuals sprinted to their vehicles. The snow was beaten down and they were within the cover of the treeline and thanks to the plentiful trees their travel was made easy. This small expanse of trees was outside the village where their battalion CP was located and there was plenty of cover if the Innies fired off more mortars, which they did. As the stocky tanker got to his vehicle another volley of mortar fire started coming down.

He reached his Scorpion right as the first shell smacked into a tree, shattering the wood in all directions with needles and branches falling onto the forest floor along with a raining shower of snow as the shockwave blew all of the snow off nearby trees. Grabbing his HMG on its mount he opened his hatch which slid forward and jumped down and flopped into his seat as the second and third mortar rounds struck the forest floor somewhere out to his right. The fourth round seemed to be coming right at them and he yanked his hatch down and felt his vehicle shake and heard the pings of the shrapnel smacking against the armor.

"That one was close," he heard his driver call out from behind him on the tank's radio.

"No shit," Friis responded, "Gunner can you get eyes on those mortars?"

"That's a negative sarge. No eyes," Archer responded.

"Alright, that's what I figured," Friis grumbled as he linked his helmet to the tank's systems and grabbed onto his joysticks next to his seat and got a view from the independently mounted camera on the top of turret, "Driver start us up and run a systems check."

"Roger," his driver responded quickly and then felt the tank shake as the big diesel engines started up with a roar.

Friis swiveled his camera back and forth as his gunner did likewise, scanning for targets. He didn't even bother with normal vision and switched to thermal. Everything seemed to be a shade of black or gray with potential targets and the discharge of weapons showing up as a bright white. His complex optics systems provided him with a full outline of the entire terrain in front of him with red dots on his HUD all over the place that signaled the pinpointed locations of IED's and mines. He was grateful for the complex bomb sniffing drones that the EOD teams had used to explore the area, sweeping the road and fields for explosive booby traps that the Insurrection had put out for them.

He winced at the more than thirty IED's and mines that had been placed in the way of their advance. The UNSC had been dealing with IED's for many decades, and the Scorpion had been designed with this threat in mind. With four independent tracked nacelles the vehicle could potentially be tracked in one of them and have the ability to fall back or even continue forward with limited mobility. The numerous reactive armor blocks were each able to block out a rocket launcher strike and prevent a tank round from being lethal to the vehicle much less themselves. The turret itself was also designed for crew survivability, with a system designed to funnel the explosive force of a catastrophic blow up through the turret and away from the crew.

"Warrior Two-Six, all Warriors we're going forward with phase one. EOD's moving up and infantry is moving next to us to establish a base of fire on town," Lieutenant Angelo ordered Friis and the other tanks.

"Roger," he responded, "Gunner orient front, driver forward, slow."

The tank lurched forward as the turret oriented dead front with Friis watching carefully as the tank rolled to the edge of the woods to the point where the gun could be swiveled freely to engage targets. Soon a lot of Marines started moving up to their sides and took cover and prepared to fire into the town as the EOD Cougars moved up in column with a pair of Warthogs guarding their advance to provide cover fire.

"Halt, gunner search for targets."

The Insurrectionists quickly opened fire from the mountainside to their west, firing machine guns and rifles down at the UNSC forces with red tracers coming down like a rainbow originating from flashes amongst the trees to their right. These rounds were accurate, falling into the ranks of the Marines who took cover behind trees and their vehicles which had driven up next to them after getting a soft dismount from them. Twelve gun hogs had interspersed themselves amongst the Scorpions of 2nd Platoon along with six triple-barrel rocket hogs while three anti-air hogs were in the forest behind them, waiting for the possibility of an air attack. The right flank force of the weapons company with their much heavier armor and weapons instantly took to the offensive to cover the central force. Their heavy autocannons and machine guns lit up the hillside with white and red tracers impacting the area, explosions from the cannon rounds tearing apart the forest.

Immediately a pair of rockets were launched at the company on the left flank which impacted short in a flash of yellow light and gray and white smoke on the open ground. This really got their attention, as a single Scorpion let everyone know it was on the field as it loosed a one hundred five millimeter round with a loud crack that blew apart the spot where the rocket exhaust had started from. But another Scorpion round followed right behind it and struck below that round with another boom and a puff of smoke started wafting from the impact zone.

Then something Staff Sergeant Friis's eye in the middle of the town popping out into the alley of a pair of buildings and fired left of their tank. It was a white painted flatbed truck with a dual mount autocannon turret on the bed. Around it he saw several Innies jumping out from cover behind the truck and firing randomly. Just from this he could tell these were no turncoat Colonial Guards. Just more URF militia wannabes.

"Gunner traverse right, target technical, load HE," he quickly ordered.

"On!" Archer yelled out as he got on target.

"Hold!" Friis snapped right as he saw the truck shudder as it pulled forward to return to cover, "Wait till he pops out again."

"Roger."

The tank crew was able to hear their infantry firing their rifles, SAW's, and DMR's into town at a variety of targets that were firing back at them from windows, around the corners of buildings and hidden pillboxes buried beneath wrecked vehicles and felled trees. However there only seemed to be one heavy weapon firing at the UNSC force, and when it popped out from cover one too many times Friis had his gunner already lined up on it. He saw the truck back out into the alley once more, autocannons blazing heavy fire and knew he needed to knock this thing out.

"Fire!" he ordered quickly, squeezing the trigger on his remotely operated M247H Heavy Machine Gun.

"On the way!"

With a loud crack the one-oh-five loosed an HE round which struck right at the base of the turret. The entire alley was sheathed in gray smoke as orange flame rose into the sky in a geyser with yellow flashes from the twenty-five millimeter rounds going off. The turret was utterly wrecked, and the back of the vehicle was a tangle of metal with thick black smoke rising into the sky. Both tankers were sure that most of the infantry around the truck was dead or wounded, but no bodies were seen so it was hard to tell.

"Target destroyed," Friis grinned, "Load Canister and traverse right, target machine gun. Range…two-four-zero."

He now saw the flashing of an Innie firing from a dug in position beneath a log that acted like a makeshift pillbox. He saw the tracers flying close to he and his tank and fired his fifty cal at the weapon emplacement. As he did this he saw the gunner's turret crosshair move over the pillbox.

"On!"

"Fire!"

"On the way!"

Like a great big shotgun dozens of projectiles slammed into the position, shattering the log and hit the machine gunner. Immediately after this round struck a pair of white clothed Innies jumped out from their foxhole and started sprinting back. In the zoomed in camera feed Friis fumed.

These men were actually Colonial Guard traitors. He could see the top of the line armor and helmets had been painted white with their uniforms a light gray digital pattern. Archer saw it too, and both tankers let loose with their machine guns, lighting up the two traitors, one of which was holding his arm limply at his side. Neither one of them made it to cover. Friis's M247H fired and he hit the wounded one with several rounds which struck center mass, and the man dropped into the snow and rolled down the slope a few times before limply stopping. The second one halted a moment, looking to help his partner, but that gave the gunner enough of a shot. With a long burst both commander and gunner struck their target, which kneeled down as a co-axial round hit his leg and he was then struck by one of their rounds when a puff of red went out from behind his head as a round went through his face. From that momentum he lurched back, his legs curled up underneath his body.

"Not today mate!" Archer yelled triumphantly.

After he said that a loud whoosh and then a screech let them know that there was incoming. Then the tank shook violently and was buffeted after a sharp crashing noise. It was no mortar round, and they knew it. A thick cloud of dust and smoke from the 155mm round that had struck were in front of them in front of a low stone wall with black pieces of soil and rock raining down, kicking up the snow.

"Shit!" Friis screamed, "That was artillery!"

Another screech and a large explosion hit the ground behind the lines as the UNSC Marines took heavy fire from beyond their line of sight. Whatever it was had to be big, and from the sound it was no tank gun.

"All tanks forward, we need to get out of this artillery," the radio called out.

"Roger," Friis responded quickly laying out a waypoint for his driver, "Driver forward fast, aim us towards that house on the edge of town."

"Copy, rolling forward!"

The tank lurched forward, crushing a pair of saplings in front of it. The infantry beside it jumped in surprise as they ducked into the ground, desperate to stay in cover. The tank easily plowed through the stone wall, and the right track nacelles dipped slightly as they went into the field and plowed through the knee-deep snow. Behind them, the Warthogs near them jumped the stone wall with infantry running forward at a full sprint to get into the cover and proximity of town.

"Gunner scan for targets," Friis ordered, panning back and forth slowly with his fifty caliber's remote control.

Friis felt the rumbling of the tank stop before he saw any targets and continued scanning. He saw a house with a few Innies firing rifles from the windows across the street, and turned his machine gun on it, ripping into the brick building, silencing the Innies inside. His tank was in between a pair of complexes after running over a row of hedges and a white picket fence and sat in the front yard of a good-sized house. They were well covered with a barn behind them, a garage to their left, and the house to their right with the road into town from the east right in front of them. But as he fired a second burst a loud pinging noise caught his attention and made their tank rock violently.

"We're hit!" Buccho screamed out.

"Smoke!" Friis called out, hitting the commander's override that deployed a trio of smoke cannisters that quickly created a white and gray screen of protective cover.

"That was a fucking tank round!"

"No fuck! Reverse! Get us behind that garage!" Friis yelled to his driver, "Gunner find that sumbitch!"

Before the gunner could traverse the turret to find the source of the round that had hit them another one slashed through the metal garage. The armor piercing round hit a tractor immediately parked against the garage and exploded, showering the Scorpion in debris and making the Warthogs and Marines that had accompanied the tank back away to cover. Once in solid cover Friis hit the button and poked his head through the hatch and looked for where his tank had gotten hit.

"Do a systems check," the staff sergeant ordered, looking first at the nose of the tank, seeing no mutilated pieces of multi-spectral camouflage, reactive armor plates, or hull.

Then he saw a gash above the corner of his right front track nacelle that signified a ricochet from a lucky shot for he and his crew. They'd just gotten out of a lost nacelle. Their reactive plates had blunted the force of the blow, and the angle of the shot had made certain the round went straight up.

"Fullback, we saw you take a hit, what's your status?" Lieutenant Angelo called out, concerned about his men.

"We're okay," Friis said as he leaned over the edge of his hatch, looking for any other sign of damage, only seeing the wisps of smoke from the reactive armor blocks that had gone off, "Just a ricochet from the look of it."

"Are you operational?"

"Wait one sir, we're running a check now," Friis responded, switching to his vehicle net, "Buccho how's the damage?"

"We're okay sarge. Systems green," his driver replied as Marines swarmed past their tank and breached into the house, sweeping it, but careful to stay away from the enemy tank's line of sight.

"Fullback's operational Lieutenant," Friis gladly reported, just as a round hit the house, blowing open a hole in the front entry as they tried to force them to make a run for it and finish the UNSC tank for good, "Dammit!"

Dust and smoke poured from the house as the squad of Marines scrambled to get out. They didn't want anything to do with that house while that Insurrectionist tank was still active.

"Corpsman!" a yell from inside the house reached his ears as two Marines came out of the building holding a screaming man with blood staining his legs as they dragged limply on the ground.

Immediately two more men went right back inside. One dragged out another Marine who was limp, covered in dust with his helmet mangled with a dent in the forward overhanging lip as another limp infantryman was grasping at his neck with blood leaking between his fingers as the second Marine dragged him out of the building.

Seeing these casualties let Friis know he had to get that tank before it wounded or killed more UNSC personnel. He jumped back into his seat, shut the hatch and then got onto the tactical feed this force had going now to share information. Searching quickly, the tanker found what the vehicle shooting at them in a barn that was marked as an access point to an underground farm chamber, perfect cover. Marking this as a target he called to his gunner.

"Gunner I've got him, barn at two-nine-five, orient there and load HEAT, range eight-fifty. Driver forward on my mark, ready report," he called out, calling out the plan for his tank, making certain he had his crew ready.

"Ready," Sergeant Archer reported.

"Ready," Corporal Buccho echoed, "Archer you'd better kill that fucker!"

"Count on it!"

"Gunner, the moment you have eyes you fire and driver you be ready to get us to cover," Friis said calmly, and then heard a banging noise on his hatch and saw that a Marine officer was laying on his vehicle, one hand holding his rifle and the other on his hatch. So he opened it up and before he was able to get up the man was yelling.

"There's a fucking tank in that barn at eight hundred meters!" he yelled, "I can't move my medical hogs up here to evacuate our wounded until it's gone!"

"We're taking it out now sir," Friis called out, "Suggest you back your infantry away from the garage. We're going right through it to get a shot."

The lieutenant nodded in understanding and climbed up and across the tank, jumping to the ground and waved for a squad of Marines taking cover behind a pile of snow-covered sandbags to move back. With the Marines out of the way Friis ordered his driver to orient facing the garage. Spinning in place the Scorpion aimed right at the garage, seeing the burning tractor in their way but knowing that it might be useful to smash into it and use it as an extra piece of cover.

"Driver, forward fast. Gunner prepare to fire."

Friis buttoned up, dropping down into the seat again, looking through his cupola camera mounted beneath his machine gun. The tank went clean through the sheet metal siding, the left track nacelle shoving the tractor clean through as well. Both vehicles entered the building, seeing nothing inside aside from the shining lights of bullet holes letting in shafts of light from the outside blizzard. The tank then sped forward, crashing through the garage's front corner facing the barn where their foe was waiting, but not expecting them.

Friis heard the light sounds of pieces of metal falling onto their tank's hull and didn't feel them crash through the building, collapsing the front corner entirely behind them. His gunner was already looking towards his target, a barn on the outskirts of the next town on high ground overlooking the battlefield. Sure enough the doors to the metal building were open, and the turret of a Scorpion tank was visible, aiming just right of their tank. But Archer was right on target and fired immediately. The yellow tracer round went up and just began its descent when it impact on the left-hand side of the opposing tank's lower turret section.

A tremendous explosion ripped through the entire building, sending out a bright yellow flash that was quickly consumed by a cloud of dust as the concussion shook the building.

"Halt," Friis ordered, sighing in relief.

But a second shot was required, as a one hundred five millimeter round from the tank hit right in front of them and Archer didn't even wait for the command. Loosing another HEAT round that went slightly right of its original trajectory the warhead struck right at the unseen base of the Innie tank's turret, slicing clean through with another flash, smoke cloud, and this time, a fireball within the metal barn. The building collapsed in on itself dramatically, one side of the barn caving in on top of the Insurrectionists' burning hulk as several tried stumbling away. Now a towering black smoke column began rising diagonally as the high winds made it disperse to the east, this let everyone know that something big had gotten knocked out, and Fullback had been the one to draw first blood.

"Good hit Archer!" Friis cheered as he heard Archer whooping in victory, "Target destroyed. Driver, orient two-seven-five."

"Good job Fullback, catastrophic kill," the platoon sergeant piped up on the radio, "Scan for that second tank."

Friis now noticed he was the farthest forward of the UNSC tanks, and the Marine Warthogs next to him had formed a hook with him at the point. The Cougar IFV's from the weapons company were moving forward on the far right flank with the five tanks of the first platoon moving forward in the lead of the formation.

He scanned with his machine gun, and noticed the snow-covered earth bank that was put in the middle of the road in the town. A pillbox was there, covered with sandbags and spewing machine gun fire with several Innies firing at them from over the lip. There was a burning flatbed truck with several bodies on the ground around it, with the twin barrels of the autocannons resting on the ground. This was the truck they'd already destroyed, and he also saw the Marines were pinned down behind it.

"Gunner, orient two seven-zero, range one-two-zero, target pillbox."

As the turret turned he saw Innies clearing out, knowing that a tank round was about to strike.

"On!"

"Fire."

"On the way!"

With a crack the high explosive shell smacked into the bottom of the pillbox and exploded, leaving a smoking hole and a cloud of smoke as sandbags and wooden planks rained down. With this obstacle gone Friis saw two squads of Marines moving forward, one of them dashing across the street and began clearing the buildings on the northern end of the street as four Warthogs followed them forward, providing cover and covering fire for their infantry.

He saw one Marine fireteam toss a grenade into a window, taking cover as a puff of dust came out of the window and then kicked in the door and stormed in. They heard the popping of their rifles and SAW firing out of sight as the Marines cleared the building with the other fireteam bounding forward and past them, weapons aimed and ready. When they went forward to an alley one of them aimed his MA5B around the corner and had to duck back as the corner was shot to pieces by a large caliber machine gun. The lead Warthog rushed forward, and fired rapidly into the alley right as the weapon it was engaging fired again at them. The rounds hit the armored sides but were silenced after a single burst, and were completely destroyed after an anti-armor hog switched places with it, fired a rocket into the alley, and destroyed the emplacement once and for all.

With this gone the Marines moved forward, and continued clearing buildings. They had everything under control, but the incoming fire from mortars and artillery was continuing. A shriek made the Marines duck in place as a 155mm round hit a building on the right-hand side of the road and blew apart the roof. Then a mortar round struck the opposite side of the earth bank followed by another further into the town square.

"Fucking artillery," Friis growled right as a pair of small explosions rocked their tank.

"We're hit again!" Buccho called out, "Just rockets, we're fine."

"Gunner find them! Any damage?"

"None that I'm getting. They hit the main hull, our RAB's blunted the rounds."

"Orient towards those rockets and back up to hull-down," Friis ordered, feeling the tank turn and back away.

He saw the contrails from the rockets had emanated from a barn to the right where a pair of Cougars was firing their cannons rapidly and a tank was advancing with infantry behind their armored vehicles.

"Hold fire on the cannon gunner, friendlies are closing on them."

"Am I cleared coax?"

"If you see your target light 'em up," Friis said, and then noticed his own gun was low on ammunition, "I'm going up to reload."

Hitting the button next to him he stood up and started the process of reloading his fifty caliber. But right then a single figure in UNSC armor, but painted white, turned around the corner of the butcher shop to his left and aimed a rifle and under-barrel grenade launcher right at him. With a thump the man fired and Friis ducked down on instinct. The Innie was excited, and had aimed right at him, but a forty millimeter was different than a 5.56, and the round struck the nose the Scorpion, hitting the tanker with the concussion and little else.

Acting purely on his survival instinct Friis grabbed for his M7 SMG which was bolted next to his extra boxes of ammunition for the fifty and began firing full auto at his attacker. The small caliber rounds did little to the Colonial Guard armor but several round made it through, wounding the man as he tried reloading and went down. But three more rushed around the corner, firing their own MA5B's and a single SAW right towards him and grabbed for their comrade and began dragging him back into cover. Friis ducked behind the armored turret and snatched a grenade from his left where he had a small box of them, ready for just such a situation and tapped the button and tossed it at the feet of the Innies who turned and ran back into cover as the grenade exploded.

It did no damage, as they'd just been fast enough. However Friis wanted them dead, so with one eye on that corner he rushed to reload his fifty and then ducked back down and buttoned up securely.

"The fuck was that?!" Archer yelled.

"Innie fireteam, danger close. Driver forward, get us around that building. Gunner orient two-seven-zero."

The tank rushed forward, coming around the corner just in time to see a pickup truck pulling away over the curb into the field down into the valley towards a bridge. This bridge was the only one that spanned a small creek covered in woods that cut through the valley that split the two towns from one another. Wasting no time he fired, catching one of the men in the rear of the truck with his first burst, causing him to tumble out and roll onto the ground as the truck pulled away. Another forty millimeter round from the same Insurrectionist fired at the tank but missed left. But the truck got down into defilade as it went down the steep hill.

"Forward, get him!" Friis excitedly ordered as a friendly Warthog drove up next to them, seeing the tank taking off like a bat out of hell after some Insurrectionists.

The tank jumped the curb and the truck was right in front of them, desperate to escape. But the tank's two machine guns lit them up immediately, tracer rounds impacting the truck, ripping apart both vehicle and flesh. After driving forward for a few seconds the truck suddenly lost control as a fifty caliber round went through the back the driver's head and swerved to a stop with black smoke rising from the bullet riddled vehicle. Right then an Insurrectionist flatbed pulled away with a handful of troops in the back, firing wildly towards the UNSC Marines pursuing them. Before Friis could order his tank to engage a swarm of tracers began impacting the vehicle, ripping up the back of the military truck and destroying the rear tires, causing the truck to skid to a stop. More tracers joined in on the slaughter as more Marines reached the opposite side of town and fired at the vehicle as the infantry jumped out and made a run for it. The whole thing was ended instantly when a tank from 2nd Platoon loosed an HE round that blew the truck onto its side and killed anyone near it. Friis was thankful there was a cloud of smoke and dust after the initial fireball to cover the mutilated bodies who were scattered around that truck.

"All tanks hold position, Marines are clearing the underground structures," Lieutenant Angelo ordered the tank platoon.

Friis hit the button to acknowledge the order and turned his attention back to the task of finding the last known tank in the area which could have been anywhere. As he did this another artillery round struck the pavement of the parking lot behind them and he knew his tank was being directly targeted. The Warthog behind them was close enough to that round that there were pieces of shrapnel embedded into its tires and floored it back around the butcher shop into defilade.

"Driver reverse, get us out of sight of that town, that artillery is aiming at us."

"Don't have to tell me twice."

The tank began to back away, going back the way it had come. As it did that there was a sharp crack of a tank gun going off in the distance and Friis saw the tracer go across his screen from left to right. He panned his camera to the right to see the result and saw one of the Marine Cougars that had driven up towards the barn with fire coming from the turret as smoke from the impact began dissipating. Before he could tank his eyes off of the scene the second Cougar took a less destructive shot to the rear portion of the vehicle, blowing off its right rear wheels and effectively disabling it. The Marine crewmen began bailing out of their IFV immediately, and the lone tank with them rushed forward to put its more powerful armor in between the source of the fire and the vulnerable infantry fighting vehicles. With a spout of white the entire area, save for the glow of the fires, was hidden by a smokescreen from both infantry and the Marine Scorpion.

"Shit! Weapons just lost two victors!" Friis called out on the radio to his platoon leader.

"We saw it, we saw it, that fucker's in hull down. He popped off a couple rounds and he's moving behind that ridge at three-three-zero. Air support's oscar mike, they'll take care of it. All Warriors to cover."

Friis saw the IFF signal coming from two Sparrowhawks flying towards the battlefield. He also noted that the town was fully under their control, at least above ground. Below ground was not his problem, the Marine infantry were already clearing it and the blue marks on the highlighted chambers were already showing them that they had secured much of it. As he looked at the map his tank came to a stop back at the butcher shop where there were several other Warthogs with one medical variant loading up a pair of wounded Marines. Past the earthen barrier behind them he saw three other tanks in cover behind buildings and decided to take a moment to assess the damage to their Scorpion.

"I'm heading topside to check damage," he informed his crew as he pulled himself up and got out of the vehicle and looked down to his right and saw two bare spots in his multispectral camouflage.

They'd been blown off, and were now hanging in threads next to he and his crew's stations. The reactive armor blocks were triggered, and were black and damaged, but the hull plating was untouched. He stood up and got on the ground carefully looking to make sure he didn't step on anything dangerous stand up in the way of enemy fire. The first place he checked was his front right nacelle, where his tank had taken a glancing blow from another Scorpion. He saw that his headlight mount was pretty much gone, thanks to the reactive armor explosion from the shot that had come from left to right. The one-oh-five round had hit the armor at a very oblique angle, causing it, in conjunction with the reactive armor, to ricochet up and away, off to be someone else's problem when it landed. But as a seasoned tanker he didn't take this at face value. So he reached under the nacelle and started feeling for any damage that may have gotten through the plates

However a ripping sound like a low octive fabric being torn sounded out, and then an explosion above him caught his attention. Friis ducked down and looked up. Through the swirling snow he saw one of the Sparrowhawks take a direct hit in its port engine and was spiraling downwards out of control. The second aircraft was off to his right, much lower and was turning back to get out of the line of fire before it too was lit up. The first aircraft was a bit higher, but not for long, as it careened in a spiraling descent right for the town.

"Oh shit…" he groaned, knowing that with something like that air support was off the table until they knocked out that AA weapon. He was of course worried for the pilots, but he had seen Sparrowhawks go down before, and rarely were the pilots killed when in a flat spin. But he'd never seen one hit a building before.

"Clear out it's coming down!" a Marine NCO ordered loudly and the Marines and their vehicles bean rushing away from the area where the Sparrowhawk seemed to be aiming.

Its tail hit first as it spun into the town hall on the southern end of the main square. This instant stop pivoted the gunship so that it smacked right into the building, bouncing off as its turning rotor chewed itself and the building to pieces as fire and smoke erupted from the site. The aircraft then flopped to the ground without much dignity and fire began licking out from the vehicle as Marines ran to help the pilot and gunner whose canopy was open before their bird was still. Both made it out at a full sprint, urging the other Marines to get back. They hadn't loosed any of their ordnance, and it was about to blow and it did. A series of cracks and several fireballs from the rocket motors completely destroyed the Sparrowhawk and obliterated the front façade of the once graceful town hall and courthouse.

"All tanks, Warrior-Six," it was their company commander, "Day One primary objectives secured. Supply and refuel by platoon. Regiment wants to push into Catania tomorrow night so settle in and be ready to repel a counter-attack. Good job Marines, no tanks lost."

Although the UNSC was going to be declaring this battle a victory it sure didn't feel like one, and they had yet to hit the main line of defense for this Insurrectionist stronghold.

 **Well that's all I feel like writing right now. I'll move on to the second of this multi-chapter arc in the next update. Hope you guys enjoyed this long chapter, I enjoyed writing every bit of it. I remember someone noting how the UNSC seemed to be curbstomping the Innies in the previous chapters and decided to prove that this is no cakewalk for the Marines. And there's more to come.**

 **Speaking of more, I've finally finished the first chapter of my first original story which I will be posting on this site's sister version: Fiction Press. I'm planning on doing so soon, just as soon as I can update** **A Brutal Reality** **to help spread the news. I'm kind of on the fence as to what to name it but I have two names I really like;** **Strykers of the Arctic** **, and** **Arctic Warriors** **. Either way, I'm excited for that, and if you have a moment to check it out when it's posted I'd really appreciate it.**

 **Next Chapter Preview: The weather gets worse, and so does the fighting.**


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Location: Planet Dyonisis, Delta Xi System

Date: January 25, 2524

Time: 0230 Zulu

The weather had only gotten worse, and UNSC warbirds were effectively grounded for the time being. Visibility was down to twenty feet, but offensive operations had to continue. The time table that they were on was very specific, and the news media was always looking to get a big story on things going wrong. So a daring mission was planned for this night. The weather had effectively coated the ground in nearly two feet of snow over the past day and prohibited the ability of the UNSC and Insurrectionists to fight after their bloody first assault on their last bastion.

The UNSC Marines had taken a truly bloody nose that morning, six Marines had been killed, and twenty-eight wounded. They'd lost two Cougars, two Warthogs, and one of the Scorpions had its front right nacelle blown off entirely by an unlucky 155mm round hitting it directly. In the air things were also bad, they'd lost a Sparrowhawk to a hidden enemy anti-aircraft gun, however the pilots had made it out safely before its full combat loadout went off, totaling the attack helicopter beyond repair or salvage.

All they had to show for this was seven Innie vehicles, a tank, a few machine guns, and around thirty recovered bodies and eight prisoners. The entire battle had been a slugfest, but the Insurrectionists had failed in their mission to defend their first line of defense. Now the UNSC was looking to break through this stubborn defense and finish their operations here so they could move on to the really tough fighting on the mainland.

So for this mission the 4th Marine Battalion was tasked with moving forward under cover of darkness and a blizzard to liberate the town of Catania from URF terrorists and finally break through to New Messina. Making their way through the forest to the West of Catania, looking to flank and cut off the town's Insurrectionist garrison, was Company A of the 4th Battalion.

In Company A, in charge of a fireteam in that unit was Sergeant Kevin Sato, assigned to 2nd Platoon's 3rd Squad. He'd been given command of this fireteam after getting his promotion from corporal to sergeant a few weeks ago after their previous squad leader was selected for OCS and was transferred out of the company. He had a group of Marines he trusted, with the exception of their lone replacement, Private McAllister, who he'd selected as the fireteam's ammo bearer for their Automatic Rifleman, Corporal Collins. The last member of the squad was their grenadier, PFC Abdul. Sato himself bore the fireteam's only rocket launcher, as he didn't quite trust Private McAllister with such an important weapon yet.

Today he might be able to actually see what his replacement was capable of, as their mission tonight was set to put them all to the test. Company A was assigned to attack a series of Innie positions and cut off the town of Catania from getting reinforcements and eliminate enemy mortar and anti-aircraft positions. Second platoon was leading the way along a goat trail leading from their jumpoff point, a large farmhouse where an underground series of caverns kept the farmer's goats, cows, and sheep warm and fed with grass growing on the ground they were gathered on. At the moment each platoon was gathered together, a holographic image of their area of operations showing them what they were facing.

The image was an imposing one. The ridge they were on flowed downwards, covered by pine trees the whole way down to where it curled east, going in behind the town of Catania where a tunnel was dug through it and traffic was allowed through unimpeded on the only road in or out. A road was behind the ridge, joining the main street out of town where the tunnel ended at a three-way intersection with a gas station on the "T" of the intersection. There were three different red marks signifying Insurrectionist military presences on their map that they were responsible for. The first one was a small presence at the bend in the ridge with the mark of a platoon in red over a farmhouse much like the one they were in. The second one was another farmhouse, this one much larger, that had the symbol of a mechanized unit on their map. The last one was the largest and most imposing, a wine distillery built across the street from the gas station and spanned an area of twenty acres and was surrounded by a tall brick wall. This one had the symbol for a company and a headquarters symbol on its location.

"Gentlemen we're going after these positions on the enemy's flank tonight while the storm's masking our approach march. Our objective is simple, cut off Catania and eliminate enemy positions supporting their artillery, mortars and AAA," their lieutenant called out, "Second platoon will lead Able Company's approach to this first farmhouse, where aerial intelligence had pinpointed around thirty or forty Insurrection militiamen. Second platoon will destroy this garrison. Once that is done 1st, 3rd, and Weapons Platoon will leapfrog us and then move to this second position, another, larger farm, where a mechanized Innie QRF is in position to launch a counterattack against us. The Captain's hoping we can get the Innies out in open with 2nd Platoon's attack, and then the rest of the company can ambush and destroy them in detail. Yeah sarge?" he asked as one of the other fireteam leaders held up a hand to ask a question.

"No air support sir?"

"Negative," Lieutenant Clay replied, shaking his head, "Command doesn't want to risk any more air assets in this weather with active anti-air on the ground."

"What about reinforcements sir?" another man asked, "Is the rest of the battalion going to be moving or is it just us?"

"Dog and Echo Company are moving forward on their east flank and are hitting Catania from the north. The rest of the battalion is going to be providing fire support to keep the Innies in the town in place. Once we've secured their line of retreat Bravo is going to move in behind us and reinforce us from any counter attack."

"So we're going after the entire town tonight?" one of the men asked after Lieutenant Clay explained the overall plan.

"That's right, our time table says we need to get that town by daybreak. Every time we don't meet that time table is a victory for those fuckers down there. Now," he said now, getting back to their own company objectives, "Our last objective tonight is this wine distillery. It's believed that a full Colonial Guard company is in position here with mortars, vehicles, and anti-air assets. Orbital imagery has picked out this as the refueling base for a platoon's worth of Scorpions, five tanks. But we got one this morning and managed to disable another a few hours ago with a strike from Charlie Company. So there should only be three left."

"What about that Colonial Guard company sir?" Sato asked himself, "Have any of their vehicles or personnel been hit?"

He was right to be asking about that unit. Like UNSC Army and Marine Corps companies each Colonial Guard infantry company had least forty Warthogs of all variants ranging from the standard gun truck to troop carriers, medical hogs, anti-armor, anti-air, and command hogs. It was a lot of firepower to take on, and being able to knock out some of those vehicles was a very important matter for them.

"Command believes that they're underground in these garages here where this winery has its own company trucks that bring in grapes and export their product. According to building inspection records they have more than enough room to house these vehicles and unfortunately these Colonial Guard pukes aren't stupid, they won't expose themselves for shit. We'll have to dig them out of there ourselves."

"Great…" Sato grumbled to himself, knowing that Colonial Guard units were no push overs. So when they dug themselves in like ticks they were damned near impossible to take out without some form of heavy support.

"If that's all gentlemen we have places to be," Lieutenant Clay called out, "Squad leaders, prep weapons and ammo, we're moving out in ten minutes."

"Third squad on me!" Staff Sergeant Overstreet hollered to the twelve Marines in his squad, Sato and his three men among them. Once they were all gathered he got to business, "Okay, we're on foot tonight so make sure you've got everything you'll need. Everyone grabs more ammunition, no exceptions, AT guys, get an extra reload and for Christ's sake make sure you've got your CLS and extra batteries. In fact switch out your batteries now before we go, I know most of you haven't done that yet since we got up here."

"And make sure you've some MRE's," Sato added as well, "We might end up too close to get resupply so carry what you can."

"Okay get ready Marines, we're moving out in ten minutes! Let's go!"

The squad rushed outside grudgingly into the cold to get their stuff out of their Warthog and began packing it away in their packs and did some last minute checks of their weapons and gear. No one had any problems really, and they all started gathering around, shuffling to keep themselves warm.

"Able Company! Move out!" their Captain said loudly after the full company had gotten ready.

"Second Platoon move out," Lieutenant Clay ordered them, "Follow me, weapons ready."

The young platoon leader started moving up the snow covered trail with third squad right behind him. They were immediately boxed in by the pine trees which themselves had a thick white coat of snow. And it was only getting worse as the blizzard whipped through the forest, blowing cold wind and ice onto their armor and helmets' visors. Sergeant Sato had his rifle at the ready, aiming off to the right as they started going downhill towards the red marker labeled "Target Alpha". They couldn't see it through the thick forest as they got off of the trail, bent over much of the time, clearing out the backsides of every tree and bush and rock they came across, sweeping forward. As they got closer Sato saw a high rising in the terrain with thick brush and several trees and rocks.

"You think we can get eyes down on target from there?" he asked Corporal Collins.

"Probably could Sergeant. Plenty of cover too, we could provide fire support on target."

"Two-Three, Two-Three-Charlie, We're gonna get up on this outcropping and get eyes on Target Alpha," Sato said to his squad leader.

Sato was leading his fireteam along a rocky outcropping that he saw rose enough that he might be able to get on top of and then get a look at the farm house below them.

"Roger that Charlie, hold fire, don't do anything stupid. Mark any targets you can get eyes on," Staff Sergeant Overstreet responded quickly.

"All units are to now maintain operational silence," Lieutenant Clay ordered them, "We're getting too close now.

"Moving," Sato said quickly and then turned to his fireteam and proceeded to use hand signals.

He brought his hand out so that his fireteam could see it, with his fist closed this was a signal to go into a line abreast formation. He looked to his left and right and saw Corporal Collins and Private McCallister and PFC Abdul waiting to move forward up the outcropping. Once they were ready he waved his open hand forward and proceeded to move forward, picking his feet up carefully through the knee dep snow. His rifle was in his hands and against his shoulder. He'd placed a waypoint on the high ground and once they got there he was glad they got there.

Waving his fireteam to go prone he laid down in the snow, and carefully moved forward underneath a large pin tree's cone of needles. He pulled out his binoculars, and looked down at his target. What he was seeing was a fairly large farm building below him. The ridgeline forked out down below, and in the crook of that was the farm property. Sato was looking at it with his thermal setting from around a hundred and fifty meters away from the southeast and was around twenty meters above the farm building. It was built into the ridge itself, circling around the whole area to fully enclose the property with a curving building that opened up with an arch over a snowed over road with numerous tire tracks carved into the snow. A large sign was over the arch, with an artistically painted bushel of grapes on it. He could tell that this was no family farm, the building itself was way too large, being two stories out front where it crossed the fork of the two ridges and three stories where it was built into the ridge in a terraced pattern.

He could see that there were several long windows covered over with boards and tarps with a few sandbags and other pieces of cover around the balconies and the ground level decks. There was a pair of large metal doors that were closed tight and were definitely the entrances to the underground farmland. There were also targets, quite a few of them. His HUD illuminated them instantly, lighting them up as red human silhouettes. There were three Insurrectionists at the main entrance with a tall sandbag pillbox with an M247H Heavy Machine Gun inside with its barrel poking out of the slit, covered in snow. The three Innies were gathered around a barrel fire trying to keep warm.

There was a single Innie walking on top of the building and he could tell the man had a normal hunting rifle in his hand with a boxy scope that could have only been some sort of a night vision sight. He saw a symbol on his HUD that let him know his company and platoon commanders were tapped into his helmet camera and continued scanning. He knew his CO was using this as a way to map out their assault. They were on the farm's rear flank, almost on top of them, which meant that they'd have the advantage.

As he was watching he heard the low crunching of snow being stepped on looked over and saw Corporal Collins waving to him. The man looked to him, grabbed his arm, signaling that there were hostiles incoming. He then held his hand up with his thumb holding down his index finger, signaling that there were nine enemy gunmen, and then moved his arm in a path across his body, pointing in front of them.

 _A squad_ , he thought to himself, _they've got a roving patrol out here. We'll need to deal with that_.

He propped himself up carefully, watching down the path and saw the line of Innies walking calmly towards him on a goat trail through the trees. They were wearing white sheets over their coats with some wearing ammo vests and belts over those white sheets. They had a mashup of old and modern military weapons. A couple of them had makeshift or store-bought night vision goggles on their heads. He even recognized that one had taken a FLIR camera and had just made a goggle mount for it. Some had old MA5 AR's, a few had semi-automatic hunting rifles, one even had an old machine gun. Their faces were all covered, and seemed jumpy, they all had their guns in hand, ready to engage, but weren't shouldered.

More importantly, they weren't aware of the Marines' presence. Sato could see they were a mere twenty or thirty meters away, and closing. He had cover, concealment, high ground, and the element of surprise, there was no reason why his fireteam couldn't take care of this squad of Innies without any issue. They weren't militarily trained, that was for certain, they were grouped up, less than a few meters of space between them. The entire column extended ten or fifteen meters, easily small enough for each of them to be right in the middle of the fireteam's killzone. He wanted to deal with these guys.

"Able Two-Three Charlie, Able Two, take 'em out when they're in your killzone."

Sato nodded, responding with a blue roger symbol that went to his platoon leader's HUD, acknowledging the order. He adjusted the rocket launcher slung over his shoulder and checked his MA5C quickly before checking to see that his opponents were nearly in range for an ambush. He carefully keyed his comm, not wanting his fireteam to confuse a hand signal.

"Charlie, hold fire. We'll let 'em get closer before we take 'em," Sato ordered his three Marines, looking over at McCallister to be sure the greenhorn wasn't putting himself in an exposed position.

He wasn't, the young Marine rifleman was in cover behind a large boulder on his belly, facing the oncoming Innies highlighted on his HUD. With his rookie in place Sato turned to the enemy squad, which was now less than fifteen meters away and right below him. He could see all of them from front to back by now. Some were pointing their weapons up towards the small outcropping but weren't doing it because they had made the Marines. That was just the normal thing to do for this roving patrol. They were no fools, they knew that the Marines had the highest point on the ridge above them and were driving forward relentlessly.

However their lack of preparation was about to bite them in the ass for the first and last time. Sergeant Sato had his rifle aimed down at the leading Insurrectionist marching at the head of the column, knowing that leaders always led, and taking out the leader was a good start. He took a few deep breaths as he lined up his shot, and then squeezed the trigger.

He'd been aiming for the guy's head, and the red puff that erupted on the snow covered pine behind him let him know that his round had struck home. The Insurrectionist collapsed forward, dropping into the snow in a crumpled heap. Sato started moving his weapon to the right to engage the rest of the Insurrectionists and saw the next one get popped right in the chest as Private McCallister opened fire and hit the man with a three round burst. As the Innie dropped a ripping sound of fire from Corporal Collins's SAW lit up the rear of the column and raked it across the line of Insurrectionists, killing three of them immediately.

PFC Abdul then fired as well, striking another Insurrectionist in the shoulder and dropped him as well. As Sato fired at the third to the front Innie fighter the man was spinning towards them with a hunting rifle in hand and Sato fired laid onto the trigger, squeezing it several times and hit his target with a barrage of four rounds dead center in the guy's chest. The man threw out his arms as he stumbled back and fell against a low tree, causing snow to tumble on top of his body as he fell onto his back amongst the branches. McCallister fired again as Sato acquired the next target and both of them fired at the man who was trying to run for cover, but had six bullets strike him in the back as he ran and dropped to the ground and rolled onto his side. The final individual was struck by Collins with a quick burst as he took cover under a larger boulder but was not covered from Collins's position and the bullets passed right through coating the boulder and the snow on top of it red when he fell onto it and slid off.

"Tangos down!" Sato called out, sweeping the bodies with his weapon to check for signs of life only to see blood pooling into the snow signaling that if they weren't already dead they soon would be.

"Two-One and Two-Two advance on the farm, Two-Three cover fire!"

"Collins, lay down fire on that pillbox," Sato commanded his gunner as he adjusted himself to fire onto that farm complex and saw that there was a lot of life coming from there now.

He was hoping their ambush was fast enough that the enemy didn't see any of their muzzle flashes. And he was proven correct when the HMG down at the entrance began wildly firing all over the place with bright white tracers. Rifle flashes also started coming from the windows of the building as the Innies realized they were being attacked. Sato saw one particular window that had tracers coming from it and decided to fire into that.

He began firing controlled single shots into the building, aiming for the flashes he saw in the driving snowfall and figured out quite quickly he was going to have trouble adjusting his fire from here. The visibility just wouldn't allow it, even with modern imaging he was not really capable of seeing through this blizzard. However he knew Innies, and understood that the majority of them wouldn't stick their necks out for disciplined aiming if they were getting shot at by direct accurate fire. That was even more true when things bigger than bullets and grenades came into play.

A shrieking noise reached their ears and they all recognized its sound as friendly mortar fire from the weapons platoon. The two tubes began landing their sixty millimeter smoke rounds first, coating the entire area in a thick white fog, somewhat protected from the wind by the ridge above it. They saw four rounds land inside the compound and absolutely coat it with smoke before the HE hit the compound.

He saw the first two hit the entrance and the arch above it. Lighting it up with a flash amongst the white fog. A second after the flash came the crack of the explosions tearing up the facility. The incoming fire from the enemy was now considerably less impressive now that the mortars were dropping fire into the area and were doing so very efficiently. There was always a one-two punch from the mortars as they dropped down on top of the enemy compound in shortly spaced pairs of explosions. The flashes were vaguely illuminated for the infantry to watch as they fired at whatever flashes that they could make out, careful not to fire too rapidly.

"Two-Three advance," their platoon leader commanded third squad as their IFF tags closed in on the area and the risk of friendly fire became too great, "Breach that front gate."

"Two-Three copies," Sato's squad leader acknowledged rapidly as Sato got up from the spot he'd worn into the snow and slid down the embankment and waved his men to follow him.

They did so, careful to check the bodies they ran past to be sure they'd actually died. The fireteam was joined by the rest of their squad who rushed past them in a loose column, rushing down the same goat trail that the Innies had just come up. There was the occasional snap of a stray enemy round coming close but for the most part the run down the deep snow was uneventful and the twelve Marines soon stood at the exit to the forest with the road before them.

"Alpha on me, we're going up the left side of the road, Bravo parallel us in that ditch across the road, stay in defilade if you can. Charlie you're covering us. We'll cover you once we get to the pillbox," Overstreet ordered rapidly, poking his head around the corner quickly before he rushed off of the trail, weaving his way into the forest where he would be able to be in cover instead of rushing down the road itself.

Fireteam Bravo rushed down the trail and ran up to the road with Sato leading his own fireteam right alongside them as the firing continued from around them. He checked his HUD quickly and saw that first and second squads were spread out, moving down towards the farm from above so the platoon was hitting the compound from two sides at once. Sato also checked the pillbox and saw it was still firing, albeit in the wrong place entirely. There were two windows facing down the road and were broken completely as several Insurrectionists in each one fired wildly out of the window.

"Sato, we're goin' across," Sergeant Blake, Bravo's fireteam leader, informed him.

"We'll cover you," Sato said, waving Corporal Collins forward.

"Alright copy that," the older sergeant responded and then turned to his fireteam, "Smoke out on the right side of the road."

Immediately three smoke grenades went flying over the road and landed on the right side and popped out a light gray screen of smoke amongst the trees as an additional canister was landed on the snow-covered road and began hissing as it deployed its own smoke screen. Sato's SAW gunner nodded and patted Abdul on the shoulder quickly and moved in behind a tree and laid down and popped out his built in bipod and aimed towards the pillbox. Abdul ducked down a few meters to the left of him, aiming at the pillbox with his forty millimeter grenade launcher. Sato tapped McCallister and moved forward, ducking down behind a snow covered pile of dirt that was right next to the ditch against the road as the young rookie laid down to the left of him.

"Abdul, hit that pillbox," Sato commanded his grenadier.

"Firing!"

There was an almost indistinguishable pop from the man's grenade launcher as the HE grenade was launched. The round struck the front of the sandbag barrier on one of the corners with a flash and a cloud of gray smoke. The sandbags went flying and roof collapsed down on top of the man inside. Another forty millimeter then exploded against the wall above the window on the building on the left of the entrance.

"Good hit! See if you can get some more HE into those windows," he heard Collins command off to his left as Sato heard Sergeant Blake rushing across the road with his three other Marines right beside him.

Sato stood up as they did this, firing rapidly at the window on the right, sending bullets through the opening and effectively pinned down the enemy inside who dared not poke their heads out. He heard the rapid fire of his SAW ripping into the other window as McCallister poured rifle fire into the same window his sergeant was. Abdul loosed another grenade that went into the large window on the left and exploded inside with a dull thump and then another explosion in the right hand side building let them know that now was as good a time as any to rush the entrance.

"Let's go, move up!" Sato yelled out to his men and rushed over the dirt pile and slid into the ditch and began moving up in a low crouch with McCallister sticking to him like glue.

He looked stopped and leaned against the ditch and poked up and fired a quick three round burst into both windows. McCallister rushed past him, ducking down and then fired at the right building where he saw a doorway and much to Sato's surprise he saw an Innie in white collapse into the entrance. He then saw Collins and Abdul run to his left, diving to the ground once they were less than twenty meters from the front of the entrance. They fired rapidly as they provided additional cover fire for the other Marines and Sato rushed forward, deciding to get all the way to the wrecked pillbox on this rush.

He ran forward, hearing the snaps of the passing friendly bullets aiming into the enemy windows. However the incoming rounds ceased fire at his approach and he was now very relieved to see that they'd all started making a dash for the entrance two-by-two with half of each fireteam covering them. The sounds of battle were still roaring, but the enemy was so far not very impressive. Once McCallister joined him at the pillbox Sato carefully poked his head up and aimed his rifle into the center of the compound, saw nothing and then looked into the pillbox.

It was wrecked, with several sandbags on the ground within it and the M247H was toppled over on the ground. The gunner was gone however, having escaped death at the hands of the first forty millimeter. So Sato went looked towards the door to his right and saw the four men from Fireteam Bravo stacking up and preparing to enter the building. He could feel the warmth of the barrel fire behind the pillbox from where he stood, and made his way over to it.

There were two doors into the entrance on both buildings with the archway connecting them that was actually a walkway between the two buildings with sandbags and wooden planks acting as cover. He remembered seeing a sniper up there before they'd assaulted the position and decided to act on it. Corporal Collins and PFC Abdul were coming forward, weapons aimed up at the walkway and he decided to have them clear it.

"Collins, there was a sniper up there, frag it out," he said calmly, pointing up above him.

"Roger that. Frag out!"

Yanking a frag grenade out he tapped the button, arming it and then lobbed it up and onto the walkway with a metallic thud. A second later it exploded. If there was someone up there they were dead now. But the fight was far from over. He saw Bravo yell out they were tossing in a frag and the fireteam grenadier lobbed the weapon into the building. It exploded with a flash and a cloud of dust flew from the door and the four Marines ran inside. There were several shots as they came into contact with the enemy.

"Grenade!" Sato heard from the Bravo leader and actually saw the concrete staircase that the weapons rolled down from and exploded on the second to bottom stair.

The Marines dove into whatever cover they could but it was too late. The exploding fragments hit Sergeant Blake across his left side, hitting his armor mostly but one fragment struck him right in his unprotected armpit. Sato watched as two of his men ran to the stairwell with a frag of their own and tossed it up and into the laps of the Innie who'd wounded their sergeant. The panicked cries of three or four enemy ended with the concussive blast from the grenade going off amongst them.

"Man down! Sergeant Blake's hit!" someone yelled out as the other two Marines backed away from the stairs and covered the open doorway into an adjacent hallway.

"Charlie on me!" Sato commanded and rushed into the room, "Friendlies coming in!"

They were confronted with one of Bravo's men dragging Sergeant Blake behind the cover of an overturned desk as he grasped at his left armpit fuming through clenched teeth. They couldn't see his face through his balaclava and helmet goggles but the amount of blood coming from him looked to be pretty bad.

"Collins, Abdul, cover those stairs!" Sato ordered, and then turned to the other two members of Bravo's fireteam, "You two cover that door!"

His orders were followed as McCallister checked the bodies of three Insurrectionists lying in a line at the window and confirmed that they were dead along with two more Innies that were slumped in the doorway, having tried to get out as the Marines had entered. Sato then rushed to his fellow NCO and kneeled beside him as his own AT bearer started to treat his wound.

"You alright Sarge?" Sato asked.

"Fucking armpit Sato!" the man gasped out as the biofoam was administered directly and groaned from the painful process, "Of all the fucking places."

"Lucky sumbitch," Sato chuckled, seeing that if he was able to feel the pain and was tactically aware enough to talk like that he wasn't in dire straits, "You'll be headed to hospital for a few weeks."

"Ain't that nice?" Blake chuckled in pain, "Nice soft warm bed, hot food, maybe some fine Navy nurses."

"Talk like that and I might just shoot myself in the foot right now," Sato laughed, patting his friend's helmet before turning back to the more serious matter at hand, "You guys stay here. Charlie we're clearing upstairs."

Sato got to the bottom of the stairs, seeing the hole blown in the steps from the grenade blast and waited for the pat on his shoulder signaling his men were ready to proceed. Once Collins did that he began moving carefully up the stairs with his back to the wall on his left and aimed his rifle at the railing to his side. Thankfully there was a wall behind him but his ease ended when he saw a small hole in it.

"Kill hole!" he yelled as a burst of fire came out and a bullet strike him in the chest.

He felt what was like a major league fastball hitting him in the chest. The blow sent him into the stairs and knocked the breath right out of him. But he was lucky, the bullet shattered on impact with his chest plate and he pulled his rifle up and lit up the man behind the hole. He knew he'd probably killed the hostile, but couldn't be sure until he saw the body for himself. As he regathered himself he noticed that this room was once an laboratory of some kind with a wall of cabinets above a counter top with numerous glasses and scientific equipment. He could tell it was now used as something different altogether, a radio room. There were several rolling stools against the tables in the middle of the long room and could tell that it had been in use for quite a while. There were a few coffee machines and mugs on the counter, food wrappers were scattered around, and a few laptops were also on and in use.

He saw a pair of bodies of camouflaged Insurrectionists. Their clothes weren't military, they were civilian hunting gear with vests of an older design. They had old MA5B's on the floor near them, with blood pooling near their bodies. A black mangled part of the tiled floor was what had killed them, one of Bravo's grenades. There was shrapnel damage all over the walls and on the counters with several damaged pieces of equipment.

Sato moved forward, aiming for the little cubby above and behind the stairs where he'd gotten shot from. He saw the body of the identically armed individual against the wall with several bandages in his hands as he'd been leaning against the wall. He kicked the low caliber hunting rifle away from the body and saw from the appearance of it the Innie was definitely dead. Seeing the damage his rifle had inflicted he mused at the unfortunate fact this Insurrectionist was barely into his twenties.

"Room's clear!" Sato yelled as he turned his attention to a door leading into the rest of the building.

Already present were McCallister and Collins on both sides of the closed wooden door. Abdul was clearing the counters and securing the communications gear and laptops for intelligence purposes and stowing them somewhere safe so they could be recovered later and sent up the chain of command. The Marines quickly prepared to move into the adjacent hall, opening the door with Abdul and Sato aiming their weapons at anything on the other side. There was a blast from a shotgun that put a hole through the wooden door the moment that it began moving, sending wooden slivers flying from the fist-sized hole in the door. Abdul and Sato instantly started firing like mad from their rifles as another few bullets hit the door from the opposite side. Collins carefully opened the door with a few fingers pushing against the hinge-side of the door and signaled McCallister to throw in a grenade.

"Frag out!" the young Marine called out as he bounced the weapon off of the wall through the opening and then yanked the door shut before it went off and faced away from the door as everyone else did likewise.

A blast from the hall sent dust through the bottom of the door and blasted it off of its hinges and toppled down into the hall. The Marines immediately started rushing in, first was McCallister, then Collins, followed by Sato with Abdul right behind them. They came into a long curving hall with several doors along the walls on both sides of the hall. They saw several sandbags and tables and obstacles in the hall and immediately McCallister and Collins began engaging several Insurrectionists who were backing away from the hall.

They saw they were all equally equipped as the others, some with snow camouflage, some with hunting camo, all with obsolete or civilian weapons. McCallister shot the first individual in the chest several times as they tried dragging another wounded Innie into cover. Collins then fired a long burst into an obstacle where several Innies were scrambling to get to a defense together around ten meters away. They ducked down immediately, but one that was on the wrong side, trying to put up a table, was raked with bullets from Corporal Collins's SAW. The white clothed Insurrectionist fell against the barricade, knocking over a stack of sandbags as he fell to the ground.

However there was no return fire. The Insurrectionists had been too poorly prepared, despite knowing their enemies were coming. The ferocity of the Marines' assault had done its job, and now a white strip of cloth was seen through the settling dust being waved from one of the doors.

"We give up! Don't shoot!" the person waving the white flag called out.

"Throw out your weapons and come out of there!" Sato yelled, and then called out on his radio, "Two-Three-Charlie, we've got Innies surrendering."

"Able Two, get 'em out of there and secure those prisoners," his platoon leader ordered him.

By now several hesitant Insurrectionists were starting to walk out and threw their weapons onto the ground. He saw that around a dozen started coming out now, holding their hands up as they came towards the Marines. The Marine fireteam was right on them, yelling loudly, keeping the pressure up mentally to prevent them from acting on their own and thinking better of surrendering.

They were clearly defeated and shell-shocked, most of them were quite young but a few were from all over the age spectrum. Several of them had obviously been wounded, as the bloody bandages across their arms, legs, and torsos indicated. Their eyes were wide as they came forward, and were shoved down against the hall after the Marines cleared the nearby rooms, seeing nothing by a few sleeping bags and other miscellaneous items. The firing was starting to quiet down as the IFF signals showed that the other two squads began to clear the building on the opposite side of the compound.

"Looks like they're done Sarge," Collins said as the Insurrectionists were finally subdued.

"Looks like it," Sato nodded, getting a headcount of the prisoners in front of him, counting thirteen in total, "Two-Three-Charlie, thirteen prisoners secured."

"Very well Charlie, compound secured, friendlies are oscar mike, all squads gather your prisoners in the center of the compound."

As the remainder of Fireteam Bravo joined them and helped secure their prisoners with plastic cuffs the sounds of battle ferociously came to their ears. Mortar explosions and rockets hitting their targets signaled that the rest of the company had engaged the Insurrectionists from their next target location. The ambush seemed to be successful, as the glow of fires burning illuminated the horizon through the dark and the thick snow flurries. More than thirty Insurrectionist vehicle markers flashed from red to gray as the UNSC company eviscerated them entirely. The popping and tearing sounds of rifles and machine guns firing let the surrounding countryside know just how deadly the ambush must have been.

"Prisoners secured!" Bravo's second-in-command called out as the battle continued.

"Move 'em out!" Sato commanded as he got out of the way.

The Marines began another batch of yelling and rough handling of the Insurrectionist group as they forced them through a door to a walkway that led outside. They got them out, seeing that there were already a larger group of prisoners on their knees in a long line in the middle of the compound with several Marines watching over them. The prisoners were marched hurriedly in front of the other group of prisoners and were forced to their knees.

The courtyard was just large enough that a Pelican would have been capable of landing in the middle with a certain degree of confidence and the sounds of the familiar craft's jet engines let them know that there was a Pelican on its way down. The prisoners were stood up and moved to the open cavern entrances as the olive green aircraft began its descent. The wind became even more powerful as it got closer and its landing gear deployed right as it started dropping straight down. The Pelican softly touched down and the Marines now saw the red cross on a white field and knew this wasn't their prisoner transport, it was a medivac.

A trio of stretchers bearing wounded Marines, carried by four Marines each, was rushed outside to the waiting Pelican and loaded onto the bird. A trio of medical personnel was there to meet each one of them as their platoon's corpsman made the handoff and gave a breakdown of every wounded Marine's condition. Then a pair of civilians was rushed out with a Marine escort and loaded up onto the Pelican. They had been hostages, held there by the Insurrectionists to prevent UNSC airstrikes on their post.

"Two-Two and Two-Three on me!" their platoon leader called out, "Two-One will hold the prisoners here until MP's take over."

Sato saw the lieutenant rush out from the crowd with second squad right behind him and move towards the gate as the medivac bird took off. Staff Sergeant Overstreet and Fireteam Alpha joined him immediately, and Sato with his fireteam and Bravo fell in behind them. They left the compound in time to hear the much lessened sounds of battle ahead of them where a coat of dark smoke was rising from the destroyed Insurrectionist convoy above a glow or orange.

The two squads maneuvered down to the road, their lieutenant leading the way as the first burnt out Insurrectionist vehicle came into view. It was in a ditch to their right, burning like a roman candle. It was no military spec vehicle, being a simple pickup truck with a single M247 GPMG mounted on the cab. There were several bodies on the ground and in the ditch. Blackened pieces of ground signified where grenades had gone off, destroying the enemy infantry from above. They came to another pickup shortly behind the first one on its side, small licks of flame on the underbelly. A few more bodies were scattered on the ground and the platoon began checking them as they passed through the destroyed convoy.

After going past flatbed transport trucks with numerous bodies in the beds and nearby they came upon the end of the convoy. Here a trio of pickups was almost stacked on top of each other with bullet holes and gaping gashes blown out of the metal panels. They could see more than a dozen Innies were all in the middle of this mangled mess, obviously having attempted an escape. The smell of burnt vehicles, and more pungently, burnt flesh, hung over this killing field despite the raging weather. It was enough that the Marines didn't want to be here.

It wasn't just the fact it stunk and the sight of more than fifty enemy bodies was sickening, it was a bad place to be from a tactical standpoint. The glow of the fires on most of the vehicles illuminated the Marines as they passed the bodies, checking for signs of life. Despite finding no live hostiles the Marines had to check, in the event that one was able to provide any intelligence that would be useful.

"We're heading to the ridge across the road," their platoon leader called out.

The Marines rushed forward, eager to get into cover and on top of high ground. Their boots sank into the snow and their platoon sergeant led the way up, blazing a trail through the snow. They could hear their boots crunching the snow beneath them but they also heard something else. A rumbling from a familiar vehicle.

"Got ears on a tank," someone called out over the radio.

"Get eyes out," Overstreet ordered as they got to just below the lip of the ridge.

"Oh shit hostile tanks!"

Sato looked down towards the road they'd just come from in time to see a pair of Scorpions roaring towards them with a long line of Warthogs behind them. These weren't URF, these were Colonial Guard troops with a lot of firepower coming right towards them. The company was split in two, and they were without the UNSC's most important tactical asset, air support. The Insurrectionists knew that, and were intent on exploiting it.

"Oh God there goes first platoon!" Abdul cried out.

A pair of concussions blasted the hill the rest of the company was on top of. He could see three Marines were right on top of the first flash and cloud of dust and their IFF's winked to black, their bio-readings triaging them instantly as dead, or soon to be dead. Four more winked yellow and red around the explosion as machine guns started ripping into the Marines and the Insurrectionist company of forty Warthogs pulled up and started engaging them. Another Scorpion fired on the hill, killing another Marine and wounding three more as the one-sided battle continued. Sato knew he was going to need to deal with those tanks, and put down his rifle and unslung his dual-barrel Jackhammer Rocket Launcher.

"Clear back-blast!" Sato yelled, kneeling in the snow and sighted in on the closest tank, aiming for the top of the tank's crew compartment, knowing that he'd be able to penetrate there. He heard a shuffling noise from behind him.

"Black-blast clear!" McCallister said calmly.

"Rocket!"

A bang and then a hiss let them know that they'd fired off a rocket. The red of the motor went up and then fell down thanks to the power of gravity. The shaped-charge warhead struck right behind the crew compartment, exploding on top of the tank, igniting the ammunition inside the armored vehicle. It was a catastrophic kill. At first there was a flash and a cloud of smoke from the impact, and then the tank began burning from the crew compartment as the vehicle froze in place. Then a white geyser of flame blew out of the top of the tank, roaring out and causing the Innies to realize they'd lost one of their most deadly weapons.

"Good hit!" Collins called out in joy from next to Sato before he opened fire on the column of Insurrectionists who now had a full platoon of vehicles rushing forward to face this new threat on their flank.

Another rocket went straight out towards the other tank, fired from Fireteam Bravo. The rocket landed long, striking against the wheel of one of the enemy Warthogs, blowing it off, and causing the vehicle to be abandoned by the gunner and the driver. A second later the same man fired again, loosing his second rocket into the tank. But his rocket landed short of the intended target, striking on the nose of the tank almost harmlessly.

"Dammit!" the man yelled as he ducked away, digging into his pack for his reload of rockets.

"I got it!" another rocketeer from Fireteam Charlie yelled and kneeled down next to Sato as he started sighting in. But as soon as he did that there was a loud ping.

The Marine just slumped forward, falling face-first into the snow. He'd taken a DMR round right through the helmet's ear section as he'd looked to the side. His IFF went black, confirming his death. Private McCallister immediately went to grab the man and pull him into cover and retrieve his rocket launcher but Sato knew better.

"McCallister no!" he yelled towards the rookie, but it was too late.

The young Marine had just gotten his hands under the armpit of their fallen comrade when a burst of rifle fire struck him in the side and he fell into the slope, grasping at the place he'd taken the hits. His IFF triage changed to yellow, signaling he was wounded, not critically, but he was wounded. A burst of fifty caliber rounds tore into the side of hill as the Innies fired relentlessly at their platoon.

Sato had already taken cover behind a tree, and was waiting for a chance to fire at the last tank so he could start hitting the enemy gun trucks. He took his chance when the enemy tank turned its gun towards their hill, firing its coaxial machine gun at them. He shouldered his rocket, fired, and saw his rocket go right at his target, blowing apart the commander's station on the tank. This seemed to deal with the enemy tank quite efficiently, as the armored vehicle began backing away, as its commander had been mortally wounded. As soon as he'd fired his rocket the enemy zeroed in on his position and began firing. A trio of rocket from the enemy Rocket Hog impacted below him on the hill and he ducked back against the hill as his platoon leader slid down next to him.

"We need to pull back!" Sato suggested.

"I know!" the lieutenant responded loudly, and Sato now saw his IFF tag was yellow, his left arm had a bloody bandage freshly wrapped around it, and tied to his chest, a pistol in his right hand, "We need to get our casualties and get the fuck outta here! Doc's been hit!"

This was a true gut shot to the Marines. With their Corpsman wounded or dead they were without a medical professional, leaving it up to their CLS kits. But that wouldn't do any good if they couldn't get an opening to get to their wounded.

"Collins!" Sato yelled, "Cover fire! Abdul grab McCallister! I'm going to try and knock out a few of those Warthogs."

"Roger that Sarge!"

After rapidly reloading his Jackhammers he pulled the weapon to his shoulder, checked to see that no one was behind him and leaned out and sighted in on the leading Warthog firing its HMG like mad. There were several infantrymen around the vehicles, all firing up towards the Marines, unwilling to advance just yet. He pulled the trigger, and rapidly switched targets and fired at the one immediately next to it. Both rockets were right on target thanks to his HUD's range finder and his own experience. The first rocket struck the leading hog right as the gunner tried scrambling out of the turret, blowing the armored vehicle wide open, igniting the hydrogen in the tanks and causing the vehicle to erupt into flames that consumed three infantry taking cover behind it. The second rocket hit on top of the gunner of the rocket hog, igniting the stored ammunition below the three barreled weapon and blasted open the whole rear half of the vehicle. With this he'd killed or wounded at least a dozen Insurrectionists, but he was now out of rockets.

He saw Abdul dragging their rookie into cover now that the fire was considerably lessened and then went himself to drag their KIA into cover and get his body out of there himself. Marines never leave anyone behind and he was not going to leave this Marine, dead or not, to be paraded before the Innies cameras. He slid out of control somewhat, but grabbed the man by the handle behind his neck, and yanked him amongst his comrades.

"We're falling back, get over the rise and stay down!" the lieutenant ordered his remaining Marines.

"You heard the man!" Sato yelled as he grabbed the fallen man's rocket launcher, "Move it!"

He stood up and fired rapidly, and was disappointed to see that both rockets missed high, landing in the middle of the road but saw that he may have wounded some enemy infantry taking cover behind the line of Warthogs on the road. But he knew the gig was up, they needed to fall back, and now noticed the whole of the enemy's fire was directed at he and the rest of their platoon. The rest of the company had already fallen back, getting out of the line of fire and retreating to the farm compound they'd just taken. They'd taken the best the Innies had, but they'd at lived to tell the tale.

However this may have been a blessing in disguise. This powerful defense by the Insurrectionists had been monitored by the ranking ONI officer in the operation and now decided that the time was right to deploy their own units to deal with the Insurrection.

 **Yes it's been a while but I wanted to just get this one done so I could move on to the next story in line. Thanks for reading guys, hope you enjoyed it. As usual let me know your thoughts, good or bad, I'm always open to feed back so that I may improve.**

 **Next Chapter Preview: Time for the Innies to meet the UNSC's finest.**


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